


All I Want for Christmas is You

by fyredancer



Series: The Most Popular Girl [2]
Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Genderswap, High School AU, femmeslash, twincest not related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyredancer/pseuds/fyredancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Tommy and Bill want for Christmas is each other. Too bad family, interfering schoolmates, and their own stubborn natures have other plans. It's going to be a bumpy ride up through Christmas this year...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. first

Gravity was compelled by the movement of the stars, or so they said. Subsidiary planets turned in their orbits because of the draw exerted by their sun, the center and the light of their existence. In exchange for such bounty, the star requires nothing, yet receives adulation for its due...

"Put that down," Bill said with a scowl as her girlfriend Tommy brandished a hideous tinsel star in her direction, large as a basketball and gaudier than a hooker's earrings.

Tommy responded with a slight outward jut of her lip, holding up the orange and red and golden obscenity even higher. "It's the tree topper," she said, scuffing the side of the gigantic ornament box with her foot. "Why was it in there if you're not going to use it? And it's the _star_ , after all; it wants to be seen..."

"I'm not putting everything on the tree," Bill huffed, setting aside a box of horsehair red ball ornaments that were from the Old Country, or so she'd been told when she had been young enough that she and Jorg trimmed the tree together. "Have you _seen_ that box?"

"Yeah, it's got a lot of nice stuff..." Tommy trailed off, dropping the tinsel star carelessly to one side as she delved into the box once more, bending at the waist and going all but ass-up as she dove for ornaments.

It gave Bill a brief but happy recollection of bobbing for apples at one of the Halloween parties she and Tommy had attended, and then there had been seven minutes in Heaven that Georg's faithful guardianship had extended to half an hour... The fact that orgasms had been involved and Georg must have heard them was a detail on which Bill preferred not to dwell.

"Stop that!" Bill scolded, hurrying across the living room and almost slipping on a half a bale's worth of golden tinsel here, trying not to put her foot on blown glass angels there. She grabbed at Tommy's belt and hauled as Tommy produced an undignified squeak and began to topple into the box.

Overcompensating for Tommy's weight, Bill yanked too hard and they tumbled together into a heap of girl limbs on the floor.

"It's like you've got the Land of Oz packed away in there!" Tommy declared, flushed and happy. She planted a kiss beside Bill's mouth. "Why wouldn't you want to use everything in there? It's all so beautiful!"

"There is such a thing as good taste," Bill grumbled, but she was more than happy to wind a hand around Tommy's dreadlocks and bring their mouths together again for more than a brief brush of their lips. Once they detached, both of them breathing a bit more erratically, Bill continued to press her argument. "We've acquired enough ornaments for ten years' worth of trees and I don't want the one tree in the window looking as though Santa's workshop threw up all over it."

Tommy nuzzled at her neck. "So buy ten trees," she suggested off-handedly, before kissing at Bill's neck and paying an extra devotional to the spot that made Bill shiver and go pliant in response.

"No," Bill said weakly, and thought she was saying it for the sole purpose of getting it out there. Tommy didn't often take 'no' for an answer where Bill and her panties were concerned, so Bill considered it a matter of principle to take a stand where she could. "I am not setting up and tearing down ten, when we only need one in the front room."

"Aww," Tommy protested, but didn't seem too invested in the subject given the boob grab she initiated.

"Mm," Bill murmured, all too happy to be diverted from the subject in such a fashion. It was after school, they had the afternoon – and the Kaulitz house – to themselves, and Tommy had declared it a travesty that it was already past the first weekend of December and the tree in their front room hadn't been trimmed.

For Bill, Christmas didn't have overly positive associations for her as it did for her girlfriend of nearly three months. Tommy had charmed her way into her heart, but she didn't necessarily possess the power to charm Bill into a finer appreciation of all things Christmas. Bill had spent most of her Christmas evenings alone as her father Jorg, a powerful businessman, had worked right up through the last hour like Scrooge pushing more hours into less daylight. They had enjoyed quiet Christmas mornings together, opening presents in expansive living rooms beside large, well-trimmed trees like this one, then Jorg had read his newspapers while Bill enjoyed her gifts. It wasn't a holiday crammed with family and festiveness. They parted ways for Jorg to do work in his home office and Bill to write thank you notes to distant relatives and came together again for a polite dinner of take-out from Boston Market or some other place that prepared heat and eat holiday meals.

"You're tense," Tommy observed, kissing that spot below her ear once more before sitting up, pulling Bill into her lap. Her hand on Bill's breast shifted to a soothing caress on her waist.

"I don't get what the big deal is with the winter holidays," Bill grumbled, settling her head on Tommy's shoulder.

Tommy stroked Bill's hair, cradling Bill's long body against hers. "You've only had your dad, right? You don't have any big family get-togethers, or parties on Christmas eve..."

Bill shifted in a small headshake.

"My poor Bills," Tommy mourned, hugging Bill to her chest. She dropped a smacking kiss to Bill's forehead. "We'll fix you up."

"I'm not broken--" Bill began, indignant.

"Have you been caroling?" Tommy interrupted cheerfully, grinning over at Bill. "That always sparks my Christmas spirit..."

Bill shook her head. "The show choir is going over to a nearby retirement center – apparently it's something show choir does every year? I've never done it before, though. Never been in that kind of group."

"My little recluse," Tommy cooed, kissing to each side of Bill's mouth before leaving a lingering wet one full on her lips. "I'm not only dating you, I'm dragging you into the land of the living for you to flourish and get your star to shine. Now you're more popular than I am--"

Bill snorted. "Like that's possible," she muttered. She leaned forward to nuzzle at Tommy's mouth. Tommy was the golden girl of their high school, the star, the center to everyone else's orbiting planets. If Bill were to express the thought, Tommy would simply leer, _you're my Venus_ and reel her in.

A lifetime of moving, uprooting herself from one place to the next to the next, losing people once she had begun to care for them, had given Bill what she considered to be a natural wariness and what Tommy cheerfully referred to as her ghost complex. She had flitted around the edges of high school social strata, thinking she went around invisible.

"You need to stop thinking--" Tommy began.

Bill pressed another kiss on her, climbing into Tommy's lap and burrowing into her arms, cinching her own around Tommy's slender waist. "You're right, we need to stop thinking," she purred, and kissed Tommy's mouth again. She pressed their bellies together, licking at the lip ring that adorned one corner of Tommy's full lower lip.

"Oh, okay..." Tommy mumbled, pursing her lips in an invitation for more kisses.

Bill retracted her arms, pushing herself up by using Tommy's thighs as leverage. "And we need to start doing," she concluded. "So, get off your shapely duff and help me. But only if you're going to do exactly as I say."

"Aww," Tommy groaned, but she got up and dusted herself off as Bill moved for the box of red horsehair ornament balls again.

"This year's color scheme is red and silver," Bill informed Tommy. "So put away that gold tinsel, will you? And you can snag anything from the box as long as it's red or silver – but I reserve the veto right to put it back."

"No fair," Tommy claimed, but she stooped to gather armfuls of the tinsel she'd already pulled yard after yard out of the box like a delighted cat dispensing an endless ream of toilet paper.

Bill slanted a smirk over her shoulder and considered the tree. It was a tall one. Her father Jorg had had it delivered to the house the day after Thanksgiving – during which Bill had experienced the phenomenon known as 'Black Friday' with her girlfriend's family – and she'd been too pressed studying for finals and spending her spare time enjoying Tommy snuggles to go to the effort of pulling out the boxes and the stepladder and everything. She would put on the ball-shaped ornaments first, wind the lights with Tommy's help, take a stand regarding tinsel, and she was pretty sure they needed a new tree topper.

"It looks like great aunt Kathrin's earrings," she muttered, and shook her head, putting her hands on her hips.

"So what's your position on clear or colorless ornaments?" Tommy's voice floated from behind her.

When she swung around, Tommy was draped in almost the entire allotment of tinsel, and she gave Bill such a bright-eyed look that Bill couldn't help but grin in response.

"Clear, like icicles, or clear, like glass?" Bill said, wary. The plastic icicles were some of the oldest, tackiest ornaments in the collection.

The older and more cheesy, it seemed, the more they seemed to delight Tommy.

"Both!" Tommy declared.

Bill pursed her lips and shook her head. "Glass," she said. "But not the glass ones with the gilt trim."

Tommy heaved a sigh and began to unbundle her burden of tinsel into the open box. "All right," she said, "but after this display of anal-retentiveness, I'm going to expect--"

Bill hissed like an angry cat.

"—some wild abandon in bed," Tommy concluded, and put on an innocent expression. "What? What did you think I was going to say? Perv."

Now Bill was pursing her lips in an effort to smother her amusement. "You know, the sooner we get this done to my standards, the sooner I could be pulling your panties off with my teeth," she promised. "Why don't you grab the string of white lights and make sure they're all still working?"

"Ooh." The tinsel fluttered into the box in a molten gold deluge as Tommy abandoned it, grabbing up a coil of lights with the intensity that only the promise of orgasms could get out of her. "Coming right up."

Bill bit her lip over a grin and flipped back the lid on the box. Most of the ornaments had long, curving hooks to keep them suspended from the branches. Others were missing their hooks, and Bill planned on pillaging from the ornaments that she wouldn't be using.

The slam of a door in the distance caused Bill's head to lift from her appraisal of the ornaments. She glanced down at her slim wrist, checking her watch only to confirm that it was indeed early, far too early for Jorg Kaulitz, perpetual workaholic, to have declared quitting time so soon.

"I'll be right back," Bill told her girlfriend, breezing past her and getting an air kiss blown her way, which she acknowledged by snapping her teeth shut as though catching it.

"Don't take too long, or I'll trim it without you," Tommy threatened.

Bill waved that off and went to the kitchen, Jorg's first stop by habit. He tended to check the message board they had tacked up in the kitchen, where they penned notes and takeout menus and dinner suggestions scrawled into the Sunday through Saturday blocks of the whiteboard section.

When she pushed her way through the swinging door, Jorg was standing at the open fridge drinking from an open carton.

"Augh, what are you, fourteen instead of forty?" Bill scolded. "Put that eggnog back where you found it – and I'm not going to be able to drink that, now, thank you very much."

Jorg gave a clipped laugh and pinched the carton shut, closing the refrigerator and turning to face her. "Bills," he greeted her. "Glad you're here."

Bill's brows rose. They had a good relationship, but she and her father couldn't be called the most convivial of families. His opening salutation tended to be 'what are we ordering for dinner?'

"Dad," she returned equably. "To what do I owe the honor of your esteemed presence?"

"Cute," Jorg said, with a brow lift reminiscent of Bill's own eyebrow trick. "Do you want to know, smartass, or should we exchange witticisms for a few minutes longer?"

"Depends on whether you're staying for dinner," Bill replied with a shrug. She folded her arms and leaned over the kitchen island.

"Can't," Jorg returned. "I need to get back to the office, but I wanted to come home and give you the news in person, rather than text or voicemail."

Bill blinked, not sure how to respond to that. "O-kay..." she said, cautious, a spark of terror flaring up inside her over the prospect that Jorg might be pulling their family rug out from under her again, rolling it up only to move to another city, yet once more.

"We're not moving," Jorg assured her, holding a hand out, palm outward. "Though, we are going to be traveling in the next few weeks."

"Oh," Bill said, and processed that. "Christmas vacation?" They hadn't done it for so long, it had faded from Bill's mind as an option.

"We're going to Berlin," Jorg told her, his mouth twitching in what passed for a smile, but his eyes were watchful.

"We're going to Berlin for Christmas?" Bill demanded, pushing up from the counter and setting her hands on her hips. "But, Dad! I wanted to spend my first Christmas with Tom! Remember, my _girlfriend?_ It's our first Christmas together..."

Jorg's expression hardened. "Bill," he snapped, using his boarding room voice. "Don't be selfish. There will always be time to spend with your girlfriend, but my parents aren't going to be with us forever."

Bill glared at her father, eyes smarting with the sheer helpless frustration of it all. Once again, Jorg came in, laid down the law, and walked out. He didn't care that this was her first Christmas with Tom – and now that she had Tom, it felt like she actually had something worth celebrating. And he certainly didn't care that her most recent memory of those grandparents was from so long ago, she'd been a bubbly little sprite whose favorite food had been McDonald's french fries. They had called her "Mecky" and she couldn't quite remember their faces, lined but kind.

She stared down at her stockinged feet, nostalgia warring with more immediate emotions. Bill shook her head as Tommy's face was called readily to her mind's eye – her warm, beautiful, sexy girlfriend who had promised to show her all that was good and worth enjoying in the season.

"You don't understand, at all!" Bill declared tempestuously, whirling to leave the room in a state of outrage.

"Of course I don't," Jorg called at her receding back. "I'll email you the flight info. Have a good night, don't stay up too late. Study for finals."

Bill fumed on her way back to the living room. So he thought he could swoop in, parent for five minutes, drop a bombshell to shatter her holiday, and act as though nothing had happened?

She paused on the threshold. Tommy was draped with looping strands of wire that gave her the appearance of a tall, very hip-hop sort of Christmas tree, and the entire length was lit up with little golden white pinpricks of light.

"Got it!" Tommy announced, giving Bill her brightest grin, the flash of teeth and melting brown eyes that were only turned in Bill's direction, so far as she'd seen. "Lights are a go. Baby? What's wrong?"

Bill sniffed hard, scrubbed fiercely at the corner of her traitorous left eye, and bounced over to liberate her girl of the copious light rigging she'd decked herself with. "Nothing," she claimed. "Dad's not staying for dinner. Let's finish this up and go to bed, okay?"

A trip to Berlin wouldn't separate them forever, Bill reminded herself as Tommy dropped the armfuls of lights in favor of an armful of Bill. Meanwhile, she would enjoy what she had for now.

They kissed like they were in a field of mistletoe, and Bill never wanted to leave it.


	2. second

Silence had reigned supreme for long moments, but it gave way to a low, throaty moan. Bill and Tommy were curled up together playing one of Bill's favorite games; how long they could pursue loving kisses until one or both of them expressed the need for more.

With a soft wet noise, their lips parted. Bill sighed and pursed her mouth in expectation of another kiss, wriggling closer into Tommy's embrace as Tom's hand stroked up her back beneath her shirt, and her eyes opened with reluctance when another kiss didn't arrive. They were cuddled up in Bill's big, wide, canopied bed; one of Bill's favorite places to be with Tommy, because it meant they could enjoy one another for long, uninterrupted stretches of time.

"Baby, you're going to have to relax, or I'm never going to be able to make you come," Tommy informed her, one hand giving up the quest for the bra hooks as she hugged Bill to her and kissed her neck. "Not into it today?"

Bill shook her head right away, tossing strands of black hair across Tommy's cheek. "I'm always into it," she protested, grabbing Tommy's hand and settling it low on her belly, her own hand covering it to keep its pressure there so close to her groin. She was hot and ready to part her thighs for Tommy; she always was, so it confused her that Tommy was stopping now.

Tommy's hand turned beneath hers, twining fingers with Bill's before she could move it or pull away. "But you're stiff as a board," she murmured, and nosed against Bill's neck. "It's gonna hurt my ego, unless something _is_ wrong...are you mad about the tree trimming?" She touched Bill's face with her free hand.

"What?" Bill said blankly. "Why would I be?"

"I didn't mean to start a war..." Tommy said, dotting a soft kiss over Bill's chin and moving up to the corner of her mouth. "Really, it's your tree. I was excited to see so many ornaments, such a variety. You must have been collecting for years."

"No, that's not it," Bill replied, squirming. She stretched to kiss Tommy and pulled her hand free, going for the fly of Tommy's loose jeans. "C'mon, I just want to..."

Tommy's hand covered hers, and Bill experienced a short-lived but intense stab of rejection until she looked up into Tommy's warm brown eyes.

"But there is something," Tommy persisted. "Come on, Bills. Just tell me, and we'll talk about it and maybe then you can relax."

Bill heaved a sigh and gave up her determined effort to get into Tommy's pants, cuddling against her front instead. "Dad came by to tell me – not ask me – that we're going to Berlin for Christmas."

"Wow," Tommy said after an instant of silence.

"I know, right?" Bill replied, beginning to pull in a breath that turned into a hitching sort of catch in her throat. "It's our first Christmas together, and I..."

"You've got family in Berlin, then, don't you?" Tommy interrupted, taking Bill's chin gently in hand. She shifted in Bill's arms until they were forehead to forehead, but Bill kept her eyes closed.

"Yeah," Bill breathed out. "But I want to be with you." It hit her with a painful bolt; she knew Christmas was family time, altruistic time, giving of yourself to others. Jorg had even chided her not to be selfish.

Bill didn't care about any of that in this moment. She wanted to be here in Tommy's arms. She wanted to kiss her in the veiling flurry of a white Christmas. She wanted to sip hot cocoa with fluffy marshmallows as they watched kitschy movies on television, just as Tommy had promised.

"You are with me," Tommy soothed, tipping her head and nudging her nose against Bill's before fitting their mouths together in a brief, chaste kiss. "You and me, we're together and I love you. But it's Christmas, and your dad, who's been so good to us, is allowed to get his way sometimes too, you know."

Bill huffed, jerking back against her bed pillow in astonishment. She hadn't considered it that way, nor had she considered the possibility that Tommy would take Jorg's side.

"I thought you wanted to spend Christmas together," Bill said, glum over this unexpected turn as well as the fact that she'd be going, to begin with. The rush of travel had come to be associated with the uprooting of everything she knew, of loss as well as the general hectic atmosphere that came of dealing with airports and baggage and connections and packing.

Tommy pulled her in for a sweet kiss. "It's fine, you do what you have to do," she replied. She fondled Bill, her lips curving in a teasing smile. "So let's make the most of what we have together, now?"

"Was trying," Bill grumbled, turning her head as Tommy leaned in to nuzzle at her neck. "But now you don't mind if I'm gone, so..."

"Don't be like that," Tommy protested, sitting up and putting a leg astride Bill. She spread her hands out over Bill's chest, fanning her hands out beneath the slight curves of Bill's breasts. "That's not what I said, and you know it. Of course I'd rather you were here, but if you can't be, then I'll wish you a safe trip...and a speedy return to my arms." She cocked her head, a fall of dreadlocks tumbling over one shoulder as she offered Bill a hopeful little grin.

"Well, I suppose that's all right," Bill murmured, mollified. She pushed her hips up, testing Tommy's weight across her lap, sighing at the pleasant warmth that gathered in her groin as Tommy rubbed down against her in response.

"I'm going to miss you," Tommy said, lowering herself down over Bill until their lips were bare millimeters apart. She ground deliberately down into Bill and they both made eager noises. "So I have to show you how much I love you right now, and every moment we have left before you have to go..."

"Nnnh," Bill agreed wordlessly, reaching up to lace her fingers at Tommy's nape. She rubbed harder against Tommy, trying to encourage her to keep going.

Tommy grinned, kissing her with lips that dwelled slowly over each line and curve, lingering over the shape of Bill's mouth. Her hands spidered up beneath Bill's ribbed silvery grey top, pushing it up and reaching for her bra, unsnapping it with the ease of practice and bringing her hands back around. They kissed and Bill accepted Tommy's tongue into her mouth as Tommy brushed her thumbs over Bill's nipples in a slow but insistent drag, making them harden at once.

"Oh," Bill breathed into Tommy's mouth, shifting back into the bedding and spreading her legs.

Tommy rocked against her again but didn't move to re-position herself. The crotch of her jeans was pressing into the tender flesh of Bill's belly now.

"What do you want to do?" Tommy whispered against the corner of Bill's mouth, before kissing it.

Bill clung to Tommy like a lamprey, releasing her girlfriend as Tommy sat up only once she realized Tommy was tugging her shirt up. "Make me come," she demanded in a husky voice, grabbing at her own shirt to discard it and pulling her red bra off over her shoulders to follow.

Tommy smirked down at her. "That's specific," she said, tracing one long finger down Bill's front, stopping in the middle of her sternum between her breasts. "So if I could make you come just by looking at you, then you'd be satisified?"

Bill produced a scoffing noise. She shifted under Tommy, pushing her hips up. "We could do frottage..." she began, because she loved oral, and she loved Tommy fingering her, but she also loved it when they could kiss and hump together and sometimes manage to come only from that.

"Hmm," Tommy said, leaning back until she tumbled back on her butt. She began to kick off her baggy jeans, tossing them aside until they were out of sight, gone from the bed entirely. That left her in only her plaid boxers, today striped in red, gold, and green as gaily as Christmas wrapping paper.

Enflamed by the sight of Tommy, sprawled out long-legged and golden and all for her, Bill sat up and pounced, not content to merely be unwrapped like the present Tommy so often claimed she was. With a squeak, Tommy went down, tumbling to the spread with Bill's weight on her.

"Ooh," Tommy made an interested noise as Bill parted her legs with a knee and settled between them. "Hey, come on, at least you can get naked." Her hands went down to Bill's ruffled black skirt, tugging.

"Too much trouble," Bill complained, but got up on her hands and knees over Tommy.

Tommy tugged her skirt down, pushing a finger into the crotch of Bill's tights as she did, making Bill shiver and sigh. She reached down with one hand to help, and fell on her side next to Tommy as the skirt got down too far and she had to wriggle and kick to get it the rest of the way off.

"You and your leggings," Tommy complained, snapping at the waist with a finger.

"You love 'em," Bill said smugly, rolling the waist down with both hands and lifting her butt to get those off, too. She huffed and lolled around until Tommy laughed at her and took pity, sitting up to pull the toes while Bill pushed the leggings down her thighs.

At last they were both naked, with the exception of panties for Bill and boxers for Tommy, and they were sharing sheepish smiles.

"C'mere," Tommy whispered, getting an arm around her shoulders and pressing their foreheads together. "I love you, y'know?"

Bill nodded, choked up and wordless by that free admission, three little words that were still so difficult for her to say. She pushed her lips out and Tommy snickered, angling in to kiss her.

They ended up in a heap of limbs again, Tommy winning the tussle for top, and eased together in steady, rhythmic movements.

"Mm," Bill murmured, pushing up against Tommy. She wanted to hook a leg around her and urge for harder, _more_ , but they were building up a sweet friction for now.

"You like this," Tommy murmured, lifting her head from nibbling on Bill's lip, the typical prelude to licking into her mouth and thrusting their tongues together.

Bill responded with a needy, discontented murmur, stretching her neck up to pursue Tommy's kiss, managing only to lick at her lip ring.

"We should try a double-ended strap-on some time, if you like this," Tommy told her, propping herself over Bill until their breasts brushed together with each rub of Tommy's groin against hers. Mouth open, Tommy moved over her steadily, their bodies striving together in such satisfying shockwaves of movement that Bill curled her toes into the bedspread to give herself leverage.

"What?" Bill gasped.

"A two-headed marital aide?" Tommy rephrased, writhing over Bill and rolling their breasts and groins together in sweet undulations.

Bill squeaked and turned her head as Tommy stooped for a kiss, licking sloppily across her ear, undeterred.

"Why would we do that?" Bill gasped out. "You're not a boy, and I don't want you to be."

Tommy nosed at her ear. "Because it's hot, and it feels good?" she suggested, grinding down on Bill harder and making her gasp. "I'm not a boy and I don't have a dick, but penetration can be fun." As though to make her point, she thrust down harder against Bill.

Bill moaned and spread her legs wider. "Faster," she panted, wanting to feel Tommy closer to her than the two layers that separated them now. "Oh god...nnnh, Tommy..." She began to squirm in the first trembling throes of an orgasm.

"I'll give you whatever you want," Tommy promised, and pushed a hand between them, bearing down on her clit and easing into hard, languorous thrusts.

What she wanted was Tommy, but Bill had no words left in her as she angled up to take the pleasure Tommy was giving her. She writhed up against Tommy, her face hot, and reeled her in for a kiss as Tommy began to shudder atop her, using the pressure of her hand between them to get them both off.

They kissed their way through the afterglow and twined their bodies together, Tommy's leg between both of Bill's, their naked breasts pressed taut until Tommy's were somewhat flattened.

"Good?" Tommy asked, nosing at her neck and placing a soft, almost chaste kiss at the sensitive join of neck and jawline.

"Always good," Bill acknowledged, curling like a koala around Tommy, embracing her with everything she had. There was a lingering unease in her that resurfaced every so often after Tommy brought her off so confidently, or mentioned sex acts Bill had never done before. Tommy had so much more experience, and while she didn't shove it in Bill's face, bringing up something like strap-ons made Bill blush and fixate on her inexperience.

How could she keep satisfying Tommy like this, when she had so little to offer in return? She loved Tommy so much she had no confidence she could keep her, if she left her for Berlin.


	3. third

Most days started the right way, with door to school service.

Bill had her own car, but Tommy liked to drive and Bill enjoyed being pampered, so she permitted Tommy to pick her up almost every school day, and even those that weren't. It also helped that Tommy drove a giant Escalade with tinted windows, so if they were desperately hot for each other they could climb into the back seat and go for it.

Having Tommy be the first face she saw every day had a way of putting a bounce in her step, an extra sashay as she moved down the walk that led to the circle drive that cut across the expansive front lawn of the Kaulitz estate. That morning, though, she was having trouble getting herself moving, and she slid into the passenger seat with a dull thump as she tossed her Prada backpack carelessly to the foot well.

"Kiss?" Tommy prompted, already half swiveled across the seat in anticipation.

Bill stretched to meet her the rest of the way, mmphing protest when Tommy tried to french her.

"It's too early in the morning," Bill claimed, pulling back to slouch down in her seat.

"You brushed your teeth," Tommy countered. "That's like an invitation for tongue. Want me to swing by Starbucks before school? If Bills doesn't get her coffee, the world's going to end."

Bill grunted, arms folded so tightly they pinched her non-existent bosom.

"Starbucks it is," Tommy decided, steering her big black car down the drive. "You're still upset about Berlin, I see."

"Shouldn't I be?" Bill burst out, glaring at the frosted lawn and the gloom of seething gray clouds overhead. It was hardly the most wonderful time of _her_ year, she mused wretchedly, thinking back to the conversation with her father that had ensued later the night before. She had pleaded, bargained, and asked him to buy another ticket for Tommy if there was absolutely no getting out of going to Berlin. Jorg had refused, saying Tommy would want to be with her family, and Bill _would_ be coming along to visit her own.

Sassing back that seeing them for the previous ten years hadn't seemed a priority until Bill had gotten herself a girlfriend had only gotten herself sent up to her room with no dessert.

"If you're still upset, I'm going to do my best to improve the mood, that's all," Tommy replied.

"Sorry to bring you down," Bill grumbled, sliding down in her seat until she could barely see over the high dash of the Escalade.

"Bill," Tommy said very seriously, "if I weren't driving right now, I'd jump you and show you exactly what 'down' means to me."

A smile twitched at Bill's mouth for that.

They did stop by the drive-through Starbucks on the way to school and Tommy treated her to a venti caramel brulee latte and a scone, which improved Bill's mood to the point she was almost feeling human again by the time they arrived. Tommy walked her to her locker and held her drink and pastry bag as Bill shucked off her leather jacket and stowed it on a hook inside.

"Oh," Tommy said in a markedly different tone. "I see how it's going to be."

Bill glanced down her front. She was wearing a red t-shirt with white lettering across the front that proclaimed 'Why be merry? I'm gay enough,' in capital letter font. "What?" Bill challenged, swapping out some books from her locker before taking her food and drink from Tommy again. "It's not like I'm declaring a war on Christmas. I don't have to be happy about it, is all."

Tommy sighed and looped an arm around her shoulders. "Part of learning to appreciate the joys of Christmas," she confided, leaning in until their heads were together, "is letting yourself be open to seeing the up sides to your experiences."

"The up side of leaving you?" Bill replied, in a small voice.

"Bills..." Tommy said, and stopped, and sighed. "I know you're upset about it, and I don't want to be apart any more than you do, but you're going to visit your grandparents. That's a _good_ thing, you know?"

"I haven't seen them in about seven or eight years," Bill said, and squeaked with Tommy leaned in and nipped at her earlobe.

"All the more reason," Tommy replied. "You can Skype me from Berlin. I'll give you a special show."

"A sexy show?"

"No way; I charge for that. Though if you're very nice instead of naughty, it might be a topless show."

Bill was distracted throughout the day with thoughts of the argument she'd had the night before with her dad, as well as the dreaded prospect of leaving Tommy for so long. She had checked her email after Tommy had left and found the promised itinerary from Jorg in her inbox. They would be flying out the weekend before Christmas, and would be away in the wilds of Germany for three weeks. _Three weeks._ She had skulked around the edges of high school existence for long enough to know that a separation of three weeks could prove insurmountable for the most devoted of couples.

The seed of doubt had nothing to do with her beautiful girlfriend, with her warm brown eyes and dazzling smile. It was Bill herself, too used to ghosting through life instead of living it.

There was also the matter of certain rumors she'd heard before she had gotten together with Tommy, enough of a compendium of escapades to give Bill second and third thoughts before she'd accepted Tommy's advances.

Bill doodled in the margins of her notebooks instead of listening to lectures, and tried to remember the faces of her grandparents. She would have to haul out the albums that had been packed away in an upstairs bedroom, if she could find the right box after years of moving Kaulitz family things from one place to another, year after year. Even labels might not help if she wasn't sure how it had been categorized. 'Memories.' 'Spare room paraphernalia.' 'Pieces of childhood,' gone and near-forgotten. The photos in Bill's life, few and far between, were stored digitally now. There were no pictures on the walls of the mother long gone or the family they had visited, before Jorg had gotten wrapped up in his work to the exclusion of most other considerations.

She set aside her notebook with a snap when the bell rang, rousing from her thoughts as sluggish as though she'd been dreaming.

They would leave next weekend and Bill would make the most of it. She squared her shoulders as she stacked her things away and slipped them into her backpack. Instead of trying to grasp on to the memory of faces she couldn't recall, she would focus ahead on the prospect of those arms wrapping her up in a hug, fixing on all the little details that would cement the memory within her this time, instead of allowing it to fade.

Once Bill emerged from her classroom, adjusting to the flow of traffic that jammed the hall, she squeaked as arms encircled her from behind, all but throttling her with enthusiasm.

"Missed ya," Tommy breathed in her ear.

Bill smiled, the chaotic anxiety within her settling into calm as Tommy hugged her and stole a brief smooch behind her ear. "Missed you more," she replied, turning around in Tommy's arms to face her. She pulled in a resolved breath and gave her a smile. "I'm going to go to Berlin for Christmas and I'm going to make the best of it."

"That's my girl," Tommy praised her, surging into her arms and squashing their breasts together.

Bill hummed in her throat and nuzzled into the hug, her breath quickening. They'd had their fair share of stealing into bathrooms in between classes, or free periods, but it seemed so scuzzy and desperate that she tried to keep Tommy's nimble hands out of her panties when they were on school grounds, at least. She worked her fingers beneath the drape of Tommy's dreadlocks and stood inhaling her addictive scent, part dread wax and a hint of sandalwood and patchouli, both of which Bill had never liked but on Tommy they melded into something new and essential to her.

"Let's go have lunch," Bill suggested. "Before..."

"Stop making out in the halls!" someone cried out as the hallway traffic surged around them, full of people headed for cafeterias or rushing for their next class or, in the case of seniors, eager to get the hell off campus for the next forty-five minutes.

"Yeah, I don't have my camera on me," another wit added.

"My cell phone's got a cam--"

"Let's get out of here," Tommy suggested, snaring Bill around the waist and guiding her into step with foot traffic.

"Perverts, like they've never seen two girls make out before," Bill sniffed.

"Yeah, that's what Youtube is for," Tommy concluded.

Side by side, they sauntered into the student center on the second floor, which many students used for their eating area during the lunch period if they'd brought their own lunches. Tommy's – and now Bill's – circle of friends came and went. Some days the tables were crowded, other days less so as alliances shifted and arrangements changed; people had to grab lunch, or hurry to finish homework, or got detained for make-up work. The student center was near deserted for now as everyone took themselves to the library in a frantic last-ditch effort to cram. Today they took themselves to their accustomed table and Tommy seated herself, tugging Bill down into her lap.

"I can't eat like this," Bill protested, trying to push up from Tommy's slender thighs, which was difficult considering the arm around her waist.

"Sure you can," Tommy said, resting her chin on Bill's shoulder. "I promised you could put your bottom on anything of mine, whenever, didn't I?"

Bill choked on a laugh. "Yeah, but if I keep sitting here like this, someone's going to see up my skirt. Now, if that's okay with you..."

The arm around her middle retracted, leaving Bill free to get up. She pressed a kiss to Tommy's temple as she did. _Love you,_ the affection welled up within her, for no reason at all – every reason, really, which was the best kind. She dropped into the seat beside her and rummaged for her lunch: a sandwich and some sliced fruit packed away into a black Sanrio Badtz-Maru bento container.

"No one gets a peek up that skirt but me," Tommy declared.

Bill grinned over at her. "So what culinary masterpiece have you got for lunch today?"

Tommy shrugged, unzipping her backpack. "Some leftovers, I guess."

"But they always look so good," Bill purred, draping herself over Tommy's shoulder as the blue thermal bag, velcro'd shut, emerged.

"Trade you," Tommy said. She turned her head fast enough Bill eeped, as their mouths brushed within kissing range.

"Oh my god, what a scandal," a new voice said; a high, babyish voice that made Bill stiffen in dislike. "Do you two need a room, or can other people sit here?"

Bill sighed and straightened in her seat, giving Tommy a brief eyeroll.

"Whatever," Tommy said, gesturing at the empty table. "It's a free student center."

"I didn't know if you were being exclusive, or whatever," Chantelle Paige continued in her purposefully breathy tones that always put Bill on edge. With her long blond curls and the cheerleader's uniform that she had a tendency to wear even on days that weren't game days, she was a member of the popular circle by virtue of looks and social status, but there was something about her that set Bill's teeth on edge, like a cat near water.

Tommy made a noncommittal noise.

"Like, the two of you were looking awfully cozy," Chantelle said, seating herself and setting down an aluminum lunchbox with a clink.

"Are you still pissed we used the spare room at your house during last week's kegger?" Tommy asked, putting a hand on Bill's striped-stockinged thigh. "Because I told you back then, we--"

"What?" Chantelle said, all pert confusion.

"Nothing!" Bill said, summoning up a blinding smile. To her chagrin, Tommy could talk her way into Bill's panties just about anywhere after 2.5 drinks. That didn't mean she wanted Chantelle knowing or thinking about it.

Bill nudged closer to Tommy as they unpacked their lunches.

"Nice shirt," Chantelle said, and Bill's head swung up. The other girl had her lips pursed and she didn't look as though it had been a compliment, exactly.

Bill quirked her mouth in response. "Nice cheerleader's outfit," she responded, and Tommy snorted under her breath beside her.

Chantelle huffed and crossed her legs, flipping her shiny blond hair over her shoulder.

"So, what can I get you for Christmas?" Bill asked, leaning in toward Tommy. She tried to ignore Chantelle, nibbling on a baby carrot across from them, all wide eyes and open ears. Bill had put off this kind of shopping for the last minute, as usual, reasoning she could get most of what she needed from the internet.

"Don't want anything," Tommy replied, twitching her nose and shaking her head, a few shaggy strands of dreadlock brushing Bill's cheek.

"Come on," Bill persisted. "I'm going to get you something – do you have a wish list? Just let me know, so I've got a selection..."

Tommy kept shaking her head. "Nah," she denied. "I don't need anything, Bills, it's fine."

"You have to want something," Bill said, frustrated. She pulled back, momentarily irked with Tommy's stubbornness.

"Well, I don't," Tommy returned. She patted Bill's striped thigh and got to her feet. "Gonna get a Coke from the machine, do you want something?"

"Ooh, I'd like a Vitamin Water!" Chantelle said, lifting a slim hand decked out with a chunky gold ring.

Tommy smirked down at Bill, touching her chin. "And something for my baby?"

Bill pursed her lips, her brows slanting down in immediate disapproval of the nickname. "Don't want anything," she mimicked Tommy's earlier assertion, and her scowl deepened as Tommy chuckled.

"You're going to be away for Christmas," Tommy said, cupping Bill's jaw before stooping to press a brief peck between Bill's gathered brows. "We don't need to exchange gifts, okay?"

She departed for the vending machines, and Bill stared forlornly after.

Bill was determined to buy Tommy _something_. In her world, affection was betokened with the receipt of lavish gifts. The more extravagant the gift, the more she was loved – or the more Jorg had screwed up, sometimes.

Chantelle was scooting closer to the table and Bill turned her frown in the cheerleader's direction.

"So you're leaving?" Chantelle wanted to know, her breathy, babyish voice taking on an edge that Bill had never heard before.

"Yeah, for three weeks," Bill said glumly, before lifting her gaze from her sandwich to meet Chantelle's avaricious blue eyes.

"Sounds like Tommy will need some comfort while you're out of town," Chantelle observed with an unsettling little smile hovering on her pink-glossed lips. "I've been wondering how long it would take for Tommy to get back to her date-roulette ways."

Bill's scowl deepened. She couldn't help but think, looking over at blond, perfectly-groomed Chantelle with her sunbed tan and her curves and her gorgeous heart-shaped face, that this was the kind of girl who ought to be Tommy's type. Someone golden and suitable for Tommy, someone with status – Chantelle was head cheerleader. She could dance and she was straightforward in a way that Bill wasn't, prudish and slapping Tommy's wandering hands away in public.

"Besides," Chantelle added, leaning forward until the school logo creased across her breasts. "I've been wanting to give Tommy another try."

Bill's jaw dropped. " _You've_ slept with Tom before?"

"Mm," Chantelle hummed, raising a challenging dark golden brow.

Bill's day was taking a distinct turn for the worst, despite all her resolve.


	4. fourth

The Brandon house was the kind of haven that Bill had never known, warm and welcoming, but Tommy and Bill didn't get to have sex there. Much.

When Bill introduced Tommy to her father Jorg as her girlfriend, Jorg's response had been "Make sure to have safe sex; I'm too young and dapper to be a grandfather," and he'd ruffled Bill's hair at her indignant squawk and left them to their own devices. Bill had bought Tommy a pizza and they'd made out on the couch afterward, having the house to themselves.

When Tommy had introduced Bill to her mother Simone as her girlfriend, the words 'my beautiful soulmate' might have been involved, and Simone had promptly greeted Bill as a member of the family. That had been followed by a correspondingly domestic dinner and they hadn't gotten a moment alone for themselves during the rest of night. 

Tom's house was busy in a way Bill had never known, being too used to the echoing empty spaces of the Kaulitz three-storied mansion. From couch in the den to bed upstairs, they had been crowded out and hemmed in by noisy siblings, dogs, and inquisitive parents. Bill had had her attention full trying to keep Tommy's hand from stealing into her shirt.

Tommy Brandon was Bill's gravity well, the one thing she had proved happily unable to escape, and Bill found it impossible to tell her 'no' and make it stick. They sometimes had a hell of a fun time when Bill tried, though. 

It was the family aspect of the Brandon household in which Bill, raised by the lone wolf that was Jorg, gloried every time she visited Tommy's place, and it also gave her the chance to say 'no' to Tommy. That was a word her girlfriend didn't hear often, and usually ignored when she did.

"Nnn...no," Bill protested, as Tommy's hand attempted to migrate north up the plane of Bill's back in a clear bid to unhook her bra.

"I want to suck on your nipples," Tommy said huskily into her ear, and if Bill hadn't been half-reclined against the pillows on Tommy's bed, that would have caused her knees to weaken and deposit her onto the nearest surface. Tommy's low-voiced murmurs were fast becoming one of Bill's hottest aphrodisiacs.

"Oh," Bill said, her voice weak, all other thought chased from her head as Tommy's words kick-started a smoldering need in her groin.

"Come on, let me," Tommy urged, slipping her thumb beneath Bill's bra strap and rubbing over the skin beneath in teasing, rhythmic movements.

"No, we can't," Bill said, making a pushing motion but all she did was settle her hands on Tommy's breasts. "Tom, no."

Tommy leaned into Bill's touch, chaining soft kisses along her neck. "I love you," she murmured fondly, taking her hand from Bill's bra and smoothing down the lower plane of her back instead.

"Oh...ohh, me too," Bill moaned, cinching her legs around Tommy's waist, resting one foot at the seat of Tommy's jeans. Her afternoon had drastically improved once they had gotten out of school and Tommy had kissed her senseless the moment they'd climbed into the Escalade. It was only getting better now that Tommy was paying her such sweet attention. "But we can't do that here; your Mom and sibs will be home any--"

She turned her head as the slam of a door reached her ears.

"Ugh," Tommy uttered, pulling her hand out of Bill's shirt and resting her head on Bill's chest.

"—minute," Bill concluded, stroking the back of Tommy's neck beneath her heavy dreadlocks. "Want a head scratch?"

"Hmm," Tommy hummed, caressing down Bill's side and down to her hip, keeping it over Bill's clothes. "Wanna have sex."

Bill kissed the top of Tommy's head, unclutching her legs from around her waist and sliding her legs down the bed with quiet-whispering _shumps_. Her black skirt was all but ridden up around her waist, but her red and black striped stockings were a barrier for modesty – and Tommy's wandering hands.

"I know," she said agreeably, "but we can't, so long as--"

A flurry of thuds and stamping noises stormed up the staircase just outside Tommy's room, and Bill tried to hide her face against Tommy's dreadlocks. She closed her legs and Tommy tugged her skirt back down.

The door crashed open in the next instant.

"We're hooooome!" declared Josh, Tommy's ten-year old brother. "You wanna play X-Box? I wanna play co-op...oh, hi, Bill."

Bill gave a little wave as Tommy groaned and buried her face against Bill's front.

"Go away, Josh," Tommy's muffled voice issued from between Bill's breasts. "Why'd you break into my room?"

It was a good thing she wasn't ticklish, Bill mused as she stroked Tommy's dreadlocks and tried to pretend she was a pillow, or that she wasn't there, as Josh stared at them.

"Why don't you lock your door?" Josh countered. "C'mon, you guys are just lying around. _Bo-ring_. Let's go play video games."

Tommy groaned again and began to shake her head from side to side against the front of Bill's shirt, making Bill squeak as her face nuzzled between the tiny peaks of Bill's breasts. "I am busy doing important things."

Unseen by Josh, the hand between her body and Bill's began to creep up Bill's skirt.

Bill squeaked again and swatted at her wandering fingers.

"Cuddling is so over-rated," Josh said, his voice heavy with scorn. "Come downstairs with me!" His voice edged from wheedle into whine territory.

From the bottom of the stairs, a new voice entered the fray. "Tom? Are you home?"

"A salient question," Bill murmured, stroking Tommy's back. "You've been spending most of your free time at my place lately..."

"Gee, I wonder why," Tommy mumbled to Bill's breasts. She lifted her head up, presenting a red-faced, mussed demeanor. "It's getting crowded here, let's go."

"Aw, Tommy!" Josh whined.

"Cool it, squirt," Tommy said, swinging her legs around and grabbing Bill's hand. "I'll be around all next week and over all of winter break, okay? We can play Call of Duty until Mom chases us out of the house into the snow."

"Wicked!" Josh exclaimed, and bolted.

Bill curled up against Tommy's back, setting her head against one shoulder blade, her ear picking up the silken-winged beat of Tommy's heart. "I like it here," she murmured, hugging her girlfriend above the waist and beneath her breasts. "It's homey."

"It's crowded," Tommy shot back, sounding exasperated.

"Yeah, but...your mom cooks," Bill said against Tommy's shirt. She rubbed her cheek there before remembering she'd get foundation on the cotton fabric.

"Well," Tommy said, reaching back to pet Bill's nearest leg. "We don't _have_ to have sex."

Bill cheeped. She climbed off the bed in a flash of legs and flirty skirt. "Okay, I'm packing up my bag, let's go; you have to drive me home anyhow!"

Tommy uttered a startled-sounding bray of laughter. "I'm glad you want to as much as I do, at least."

Bill turned with a smile, slipping her backpack over one shoulder. "All the time," she replied, her smile widening even further. "It's just that I have a sense of the appropriate."

Tommy dismissed that with a flick of her fingers. "Wait downstairs for me?" she requested, walking around the side of her bed toward the far end.

Bill raised a brow.

"It's a surprise," Tommy said demurely. "Besides, Mom likes it when you come by to say hello."

Efficiently guilted, Bill fired off an air-kiss and left the room. Tommy's sister Gwen was walking up the hallway, far more decorous – and quiet – than Josh, but just as nosey. Gwen was thirteen, blond, and weaseled her way past Tommy's closed door even more often than Josh did, despite the fact that both Tommy and Bill were fairly sure Gwen was squicked by the prospect of lesbian goings-on.

"Oh!" Gwen exclaimed, startling. "Hi, Bill." She froze in place beside the wall as though Bill had caught her with her hand on her wallet.

"Hey, Gwen," Bill said with a smile that was more grimace. She headed down the stairs, trailing a hand down the banister to steady herself in case she slipped in her stockinged feet.

The Brandon house was such a stark comparison to what Bill had always thought of as home. It was more than just a house; it was lived in, there was clutter in the corners, backpacks and shoes jumbled up beside the door, a bench beside the staircase overgrown with coats and toys and other odds and ends. Bill padded down the hall to the kitchen straight past the dining room, which had a low "chandelier" with light bulbs covered with blown-glass shades, and a lace runner down the front of the dark-varnished table. There were enough spaces for six, in a family of five, so when Bill stayed over for dinner there was just enough room.

She moved into the cheery kitchen, decorated in warm browns and yellows with touches of green here and there. Simone was unloading groceries from sturdy canvas bags, and looked up as she entered the room.

"Oh, hello, Bill dear," she said pleasantly.

Whenever Simone addressed Bill in such a fashion it always gave her a warm swirl in her middle, similar to what she experienced when Tommy called her pet names but something more mellow, perhaps what someone who would know better would call maternal, or familial.

"Hello!" Bill chirped with a quick wave, similar to how she'd greeted Josh.

"Are you staying for dinner with us?" Simone asked, setting aside a box of pasta. "You know you're always welcome, right, Bill? I hate to think of you all alone in that enormous house of yours..."

"Oh, it's fine," Bill said, waving it off. "Dad comes in later and we eat together, so..."

"But not homemade," Simone fretted. "I have a casserole in the fridge if you want to take it home."

"Aw, Mom, she doesn't want that," Tommy interjected, coming through the door and hooking an arm around Bill's neck. "C'mon, we've got to go, Bills and I have lots of homework to do. We'll see you later, okay?"

"Homework, right," Simone said, turning a 'don't bullshit me' look on the pair of them. "Okay, well, Tommy, are you having dinner over there? If not, try to be home by seven."

"No promises," Tommy said, her fingers tightening on Bill's shoulder. She steered her out of the kitchen. "Let's go while the getting is good."

Bill snickered and let herself be led.

It was already deep dark by the time the Escalade pulled through the gates that guarded the Kaulitz estate, though the hour was still relatively early by evening standards. Bill fiddled with her phone, answering a few emails while Tommy bopped her head over her steering wheel to the tune of the hip-hop playing softly from the speakers. She kept the music turned down, but not off as she took into consideration their differing music tastes.

Buying Tommy new music for Christmas had occurred to Bill, more than once, but she wasn't the pushy sort to try to make her girlfriend listen to her kind of music. If they were in Bill's car, they'd listen to Bill's CD collection. Otherwise, Tommy reigned behind the wheel.

Inside, they rushed from the front drive through the cold empty halls, giggling and pinching at one another, mock-tickling and Bill shrieked as Tommy got too close to a particularly sensitive spot, breaking into a run and keeping temptingly out of range. Tommy called out plaintively to her and shuffled faster, urging Bill not to be mad, she was too tempting, was all.

Bill paused against the wood of the doorframe, slanting a needy glance over her shoulders. "Tommy, don't keep me waiting," she entreated. Her room was kept on a different thermometer, and was perfectly warm in contrast to the cold halls beyond. She was comfortable pulling off her shirt and tossing it to the side as she moved into her room toward the bed.

"Oh, sexy," Tommy breathed, swaggering faster. She began to hitch her pants up as she reached the door, appeared to think better of it, and unbuttoned them as she kept moving, letting gravity do its work and stepping out of them as she continued toward Bill.

Bill giggled, toppling onto the edge of the bed to begin working off her tights as Tommy made a beeline for her, peeling out of her sports bra. "Come here, I need you," she said, beckoning with a hand.

Tommy grinned and climbed onto the bed beside her, bouncing once as though testing the springiness of the mattress, dropping her backpack right beside it as she put a hand on Bill's bare thigh. "Now can I lick your nipples?" she asked in that raspy voice from earlier.

"Yes; yes please," Bill replied hoarsely, letting Tommy lay her back amongst her many fluffy pillows. She was still half-dressed, her black skirt pushed down around her knees along with her striped tights, enough to bare her silvery grey panties. She was wearing a bra composed of matching material, and reached behind herself to disengage the hooks. She lifted her arms up, giggling a bit as Tommy pulled it off her and threw it dramatically aside.

"There's my Bills," Tommy said softly, and settled between her legs. She pressed her mouth to Bill's diaphragm before kissing her way up toward one breast, pushing it up with one hand.

It surprised a moan out of Bill as Tommy licked across her nipple even though Tommy had expressed the direct intent. Their bodies pressed together as Tommy murmured softly around her mouthful and rutted against her, rubbing her belly insistently against Bill's groin.

"Oh...oh yes," Bill sighed, tangling a hand in Tommy's dreadlocks.

Tommy grinned around her nipple, releasing it briefly from her control only to lick over it again with a series of quick, rough little licks, drawing a lazy circle around it before suckling it between her lips.

Bill cried out, pushing her hips up against Tommy's weight. "Feels good..." She kneaded at Tommy's shoulder with her other hand, basking in enjoyment, wanting kisses too but those could come later, if they rocked together as they had the day before.

Tommy rocked against her with a teasing rhythm as she mapped her way to the other nipple, paying that its share of attention, too. Her nimble finger teased at the cool damp nipple she'd left behind, stroking it and keeping it tightly perked.

"Ahh," Bill cried, arching her hips against Tommy's weight. She tried to tangle a leg over Tommy's but her girlfriend pushed up, stunning Bill in place momentarily with the arc of pleasure she got from that brief extra rub.

Tommy smiled down at her, eyes alight, and hovered close enough to press their nipples and bare breasts together. Bill's eyes fluttered.

"I know you like that," Tommy said hoarsely, propping above her and starting up small movements again, causing Bill to make anxious little keens. "So, there's something I want to try, okay?"

"Hmm what?" Bill mumbled, receptive to just about anything as Tom nosed at the sensitive spot beneath her ear and kissed it.

Tom sat up on the bed, patting Bill's leg before leaving her briefly. "Stay right here."

Bill murmured assent, eyes following Tommy curiously as she delved over the edge of the bed and came back with an item that looked like a bulky green jelly thimble.

"What is...?" Bill trailed off as Tommy flicked it on and it began to vibrate. "Ohh."

"Lay back and enjoy this, love," Tommy told her.

Bill thought it redundant considering she was already lying prone, but she eyed Tommy's hand with apprehension as her girlfriend draped herself half on Bill's side, half next to her, and caressed up her thigh. Tommy's nose nudged at her jaw and Bill turned her head for a kiss. They shared a long, sweet one as Tommy worked her panties down.

"Is it going in--" Bill began, and squeaked when Tommy pushed her hand in to stroke at the apex of Bill's thighs. Her eyes rolled back and her lips went slack as Tommy tongued at her mouth, pressing the vibrating finger-toy directly over her clit. Bill bucked up against Tommy's steadily moving hand, whimpering and catching at her shoulder, grabbing a handful of dreadlocks. She tried to strain closer, pushing up against Tommy's hand even as she struggled to maintain the coherency of their kiss.

"Good?" Tommy murmured, her voice sounding as though it came from very far away.

"Yes...oh yes..." Bill sobbed out, her legs parting wider but hobbled, to a point, by the tights and panties and skirt wedged around her knees.

Tommy kissed her once more, hard, and got up, breasts swaying. Bill reached up to caress one before it moved out of range. With an insistent touch, Tommy directed Bill to swing her legs up toward her chest, giving Tommy total access to her bared private parts.

"Oh," Bill whimpered as the vibrating touch returned.

Tommy leaned down on her, causing Bill's legs to bob toward her chest and putting pressure on her hand as she rocked it into Bill, finger seeking her clit again and again as she thrust her hips in rhythmic motions.

"Oh, god," Bill moaned, and cried out from the sheer excess of pleasure as Tommy kept _going_ , her movements never stopping. The vibrations were delivering intense jolts of sensation straight to her clit, and Tommy was ruthless in its delivery. "Tommy...Tommy!" 

"Come for me," Tommy urged, gentle but inexorable as she pushed her hips against Bill and the vibrating little toy strobed against Bill's clit.

Bill exclaimed again, wordless and fervent as she began to twitch in the grasp of a powerful orgasm. It was pulled up out of her fast, much faster than she was accustomed to coming, even with Tommy's skilled hands and mouth drawing it out of her.

Tommy piled her weight atop Bill, riding the toy between them as she shuddered over Bill and pressed her legs in against her chest and took her mouth.

"Mm... _nnh!_ " Tommy moaned against Bill's tongue as she thrust her hips down in strong unstoppable movements. The vibrator buzzed between them and Bill throbbed violently, clutching at every part of Tommy she could reach and sucking at Tommy's tongue.

It seemed to go on forever, until they were a panting heap of mingled Bill-and-Tom on the bed, mussed but still made. Tommy eased off to one side of her, flicking the toy off and dropping it to the bedspread before cupping Bill's breast and joining their mouths.

They made out with soft murmurs, facing one another on the spread. They were still half out of their clothes, Bill's underwear and stockings and skirt binding around her knees, Tommy with boxers that were pushed low enough to expose the golden triangle of hair that led to her clit.

"I liked that," Bill confessed sleepily, when Tommy parted from her at last, stroking over her side and bare hip.

Tommy pressed another kiss to her collarbone. "Good," she replied brightly, sounding pleased. She sat up again, the definition of her stomach muscles rippling beneath her skin, and Bill lazed where she was and admired her girlfriend's trim figure as Tommy reached over the side of the bed once more, rummaging in her backpack by the sound of it.

"Don't tell me..." Bill began, getting an inkling at last.

A moment later Tommy returned with a manic grin and a handful of slim blue bullet-shaped vibrator. "Look," she said, brandishing it proudly. "It's shaped nothing like a boy. I thought you might be open to giving it a try?"

Bill moaned weakly and settled back in her place, lacing her hands over her bare stomach and laying her feet over Tommy's thighs. "Get my clothes off, then, and we'll see how 'open' I am."

Tommy's blinding smile was, as ever, worth the surrender.

There were many circumstances under which Bill _tried_ to tell Tommy no, but when it came to initiating new pleasures, she never had a chance. The specter of all their troubles fell away as their lips and hands – and bodies – came together. Tommy was her irresistible force, and denial was useless as well as plain undesirable against that mutually gratifying assault.


	5. fifth

At school, Tom referred to Bill as 'my girlfriend' and Bill called Tommy 'my stalker,' but each of them used the same tell-tale besotted tone, so no one was fooled.

"Hey, where's your stalker?" Georg asked her in a teasing tone as he slid into the seat on her left, opposite side of where Tommy normally sat.

Bill made an exasperated noise in her throat. "Out lurking," she replied with a wave of her hand. They had different classes throughout the day, and their mutual English one was the one across the building from Tommy's previous class. "She won't tell me what she wants for Christmas."

Georg chuckled warmly, propping an elbow on his desk as he shook his sweep of well-tended chestnut hair away from his face. He played bass guitar, Bill knew, and once upon a time he'd gone to music school with Tommy and Bill's actual lurker friend, Gustav.

"Chances are, she probably has, already," Georg advised. "I'm sure she didn't phrase it as a gift request, exactly, but she put the thought out there."

Bill leaned against the edge of her desk until it cut into her stomach. "Hmm." She set her chin in her hands. She'd given thought to Tommy's suggestion from the other day of a double-ended strap-on, but that wasn't exactly the kind of thing one would want to open beside the tree on Christmas morning.

"Think about it," Georg said with a brief wink.

"Are you coming onto me?" Bill responded with a demure smile. "You know my stalker doesn't like that kind of thing..."

"Who's coming onto you?" a familiar voice demanded, and Tommy swung a leg over the seat beside Bill. With a crack of her knuckles, Tommy set a fist into her opposite palm and narrowed her eyes at Georg. "I'm pretty sure I can take him."

"Won't be necessary," Georg asserted, raising both hands. "We were just talking Christmas."

Tommy chuckled. "With my Bills? Let me know your secret."

"Presents," Bill tacked on, sulky. "I'm obtuse and I need to be told what to get." She wished Georg hadn't said that. Now she'd be racking her brain for every conversation she'd had with Tommy for weeks, trying to figure out the gift idea that had been spoken when she'd failed to note it.

"Nothing, I already told you that," Tommy said, her mouth flattening in an annoyed line. Her eyes flicked to meet Bill's before focusing on the front of the class.

"I can't not get you something--" Bill began, and cut herself short as the teacher came into the classroom and shut the door with a decisive bang.

She stewed all through class and doodled pictures of ornaments, the tinsel Tommy had wanted to drape around the tree, and found herself considering a gift of schlocky tree-trimming blown glass. It wasn't personal enough; and besides, Tommy would only get to use it once a year. Tommy didn't need more New Era caps; she had a ton and Bill didn't even know everything in her inventory. She'd thought about getting her new boxers, but that seemed...not sexy, somehow. She was going to have to finesse some kind of wishlist out of her.

Bill had even tried Amazon, but Tommy hadn't even been registered with a wishlist there, or if she was it had been private.

When the bell rang, where most students jumped to their feet at once, Bill remained at her desk instead, finishing up her scrollwork on the doodle that she had started at the upper corner of the page.

"Are you mad?" Tommy asked her, brown eyes watchful, tongue flicking at the corner of her mouth where her lip ring resided.

Bill produced a scoffing noise in her throat. "Me, mad?" Her chair scraped away from the table. "Now, what would make you say that?"

"Because you're acting mad," Tommy replied, forthright about it. "And I'd like to spend the lunch period with my girlfriend."

Bill huffed, cramming her notebook into her backpack and shoving the zipper closed so fast that she almost jammed it. "Go and find her, then."

"Bills," Tommy said, sounding pained. She came around the desk that separated them and stood in front of Bill, lifting up a hand as though to cup her jaw. "I already told you, I don't need anything. Can't you accept that?"

With a quiet hum in her throat and an arch of her brow, Bill remained fixed in place when her instinct told her to pull away, because she _was_ still mad. "Come shopping with me tonight," she said, changing her angle of attack. Tommy's warm, calloused fingers stroked along her jaw and Bill tipped her head into the caress.

At that, Tommy looked pained. "Shopping," she protested. "That's what the internet is for."

Bill folded her arms. "I haven't gotten a single thing for my relatives in Germany, and I don't care if they're not expecting anything; I will have something for them when I step off that plane."

"You're so single-minded," Tommy said, sidling close enough to hook an arm around her shoulders. "It's like some super power with you."

Bill snorted. "You don't complain when I'm single-mindedly making you come."

"Hey," Georg's voice said behind them, pointed. "I'm still here."

Tommy laughed. "Yeah, and I'll bet you wish you could say that, during."

"God, yes," Georg admitted.

Bill laughed, turning her head to find Tommy warmly chuckling beside her, and they went to the student center arm in arm. Balance was restored for now, because Bill had a _plan_.

Over the lunch hour, clustered in a huge group with Andreas and Georg and an assorted half-dozen of the others who hovered at the edge of Tommy's circle, Bill couldn't help but try again. She set aside the lacquered wooden chopsticks she'd been using to pick the peas out of her vegetable fried rice and leaned against Tommy's shoulder.

Tommy put an arm around her automatically, nudging close to kiss Bill's temple.

Bill was pleased with those sorts of public displays of affection, so long as Tommy didn't try to press her any further. Territory below the bellybutton was verboten and would require a trip to the bathroom. The chestal area was strictly off limits while they were on school grounds unless there was accidental contact, because Bill was _loud_ with Tommy's mouth on her nipples.

"If you could have any one thing for Christmas," Bill breathed into Tommy's ear, not above placing a strategic hand on her thigh, "what would it be?"

Tommy turned her head and gave Bill a compressed-mouth glare. "Don't push this," she warned. "You know, all I want is you." She bit her lip as though conceding she'd gone too far.

Bill shoved at Tommy's thigh, scooting out of range. "Well, you can't have me," she replied, her own annoyance lowering like an instant cloud. As with the dreadful weather that plagued Chicago this time of year, her anger at being taken from Tommy had only been swept away and left clear skies for a little while. It was ready to descend once more. "I'll be in Berlin that whole week, and after. But, if you want anything else..."

Tommy shook her head, turning her attention to what appeared to be a large hunk of shepherd's pie. "Don't need anything."

Bill's thoughts drifted, once more, to the double-ended strap-on that Tommy had mentioned. Delicate heat rose into her face. Her experience with Tommy's vibrator had been good, so good that she knew she wanted more. She pictured Tommy's weight slung across her while that delicious deep ache pushed within her, and Tommy's ecstatic panting expression tipped her over the edge...

That could be nice, much more than nice, and she found herself far more open to the idea than the first time Tommy had brought it up.

There was still enough time if she got express shipping...and then it could be a promise for the two of them, something to set aside and enjoy when Bill got back.

"Stop sulking," Tommy said, petting Bill's nearest leg and the textured fabric of today's patterned tights.

"Wasn't," Bill denied, giving Tommy surprised eyes. She had been far, far away, but in contemplation of the delights to be had of Tommy and the toy she had suggested the other day. It had driven thoughts of her pique at Tommy's stubbornness right out of her mind.

"Do we really have to go shopping after school?" Tommy wanted to know, sounding plaintive.

Bill pitched the question back at her, "I don't know, Tom, do you really want orgasms after school?"

Tommy's eyes darkened and Bill was pleased that her rhetoric had made such an impression.

"I'm at your command," Tommy said, scooting her chair several notches closer, until she could wind her arm around Bill's shoulders again. "So long as you're at mine, afterward." She aimed a devoted leer in Bill's direction.

Bill made a scoffing noise, but said nothing to deny it. That was more or less what she'd had in mind, after all.

When Tommy got up to get a Coke, Bill experienced a resurgence of her plague of doubt from the day before. Like a swarm of gnats, the thought of Tommy leaving her, or hooking up with someone else while she was on break, wouldn't quite go away. She hadn't told Tommy, of course. _I know I'm not the brightest but I'd never be stupid enough to cheat on you,_ Tommy had told her in the wooing phase of their relationship.

It was satisfying to hear, but the certainty of never seeing it play out in real life was a good deal less rock solid. Bill had read and seen enough to know that many people were faithless, and a statistically significant number cheated on their significant others – or were cheated upon.

Tommy had promised, but would she be able to stand fast on that when she wasn't joining Bill regularly in her bed?

Chantelle's cool blue eyes had offered a challenge, and Bill found herself lacking when stacked up against the assets that the pretty blond cheerleader had to offer.

How long could she, Bill, keep her Tommy satisfied? Especially when Tommy had known so many varied pleasures with girls that were probably all too willing to fall right into her lap.

"Careful, Bill," Andreas told her from across the table. "You look like you're about to hone diamonds with that thousand-yard stare."

Bill glanced up, startled. "I wasn't..." she began vaguely, looking around for Chantelle, then for Tommy. She shook her head and pushed up from her seat. "Gonna find my stalker."

"You're bass-ackwards again," Andreas called after her, though his tone was affectionate. "Usually the object of the stalking doesn't have to go looking for the person committing the act."

"Well, she's not a very good one, then, is she?" Bill retorted over her shoulder.

Wherever Bill was, there was Tommy. For the past three months, it had seemed to be the rule in Bill's life. Her stomach twisted painfully as she contemplated a time when that might not be so, for the two of them. Not because Bill had uprooted and moved, but because Tommy herself had decided not to be with Bill anymore.

Like saying 'no,' Bill knew there would never be a time she'd make that decision where Tommy was concerned.

There were different pockets of people scattered throughout the student center. Bill passed by a few geeks hunched over a laptop, giving the floppy-haired one a wave when he glanced up. He bobbed his head in response. She passed a couple of hipsters sharing black earbuds for an mp3 player, one of them crooning along softly to the music.

The Coke vending machines stood against the far wall, but Tommy was nowhere to be seen beside them. Bill folded her arms tightly and began casting around this way and that for her lovely stalker. If she found Chantelle macking on her woman, the civility was going out the window like the single-glove look she'd played around with last year. She had nice, sharp nails and a willingness to use them, as Tommy's shoulders could attest.

She passed a recessed nook and did a double-take. Tommy stood beside one of the bean bag chairs, hip cocked out, having a word with Gustav. The boy was turtled on his back in the bean bag chair beside Tommy, fingers laced over his white t-shirt, his expression so blank he appeared startled as Tommy gestured with animation.

Bill headed for them, raising a brow when Gustav raised a finger and drew it across his throat in the 'kill' signal.

Tommy's dreadlocks bounced as she nodded, and she turned toward Bill, her face lighting up at once. "Bills! You missed me, didn't you?"

"Erm...sure," Bill said vaguely, staring past Tommy as she connected gazes with Gustav. Her lurker friend would want nothing to do with popular Tommy, so Tommy must have sought him out, for whatever reason.

"You want a Coke, too?" Tommy asked, looping her arm around Bill's waist and guiding her toward the vending machines.

"What did you want with Gustav?" Bill returned, slanting a glance over her shoulder at Gustav, who was pulling a face so straight, a ruler could probably be drawn plumb level along his lips.

"Change for a dollar," Tommy claimed, grasping a pocket and jiggling it, eliciting a chime of coins from within.

"Uh...huh," Bill said, biting her lip and knitting her brows at Tommy.

Tommy gave her a smooth, innocent smile and squeezed her arm tight around Bill, tweaking the underside of her breast.

Bill cheeped and slapped at her fingers, thoroughly diverted.

"So," Tommy said in an intimate, very interested tone. "Any chance we'll be going someplace that has a Victoria's Secret where you can model their winter line for me?"

"You're a pervert," Bill said, and because that was nothing new, she added to make it very clear, "we're not having sex in any mall store fitting rooms."

"Damn," Tommy lamented, but leaned in to steal a kiss. "Well, any afternoon spent with you is always worth my time."

"Save it," Bill said dryly. "You're already getting lucky. ...Probably."

She would _try_ not to make it contingent on acquiring a Christmas wishlist for her Tommy. At the very least, though, she'd be getting in some good shopping and Tommy's pain for the whole girly process would go a long way to assuaging Bill's irritation over being thwarted thus far.


	6. sixth

The days passed too fast, and there wasn't enough time left for everything Bill wanted to do as they barreled through the last flurry of finals and pre-holiday merriment. Before Bill quite realized, she was standing beside an open suitcase with Tommy sprawled out beside her watching Bill select outfits to throw into her cases for traveling.

"It's going to be cold in Berlin," Tommy cautioned her, as Bill held up a short-sleeved shirt that proclaimed 'Satan is a Poser.'

"I know," Bill said absently, looking everywhere but Tommy as she folded it up and tossed it atop her black glitter jeans. Tommy was gorgeous and half-naked on her bed after a frantic session during which they'd clung together and humped desperately, seeking the solace they could provide one another by hand and mouth, for now. If Bill looked up, she was going to want to have Tommy all over again, and they were running out of time. "They'll have heating indoors, though, and I've got my peacoat. And the fur-lined leather trench coat."

"Fur is..." Tommy began, censorious as the first time she'd seen Bill pull that out of her closet.

"Fur is murder, I know," Bill sighed, holding up a slim hand. "But it's a gorgeous coat and the fur they trimmed it from is already dead and it was a gift, okay? I can't just throw it out."

"Sure, okay," Tommy grumbled, getting up from the bed to draw her jeans on over her boxers.

"Wait...you're not leaving, are you?" Bill wanted to know, her throat clutching tight. She'd hoped that they could have another bout of lovemaking after she was done filling her suitcases with enough to tide her over for the weeks that she'd be gone.

And, there was also...

Bill's foot nudged a wrapped gift tucked away beneath the cream-colored dust ruffle at the foot of her canopy bed. There was something she wanted to give Tommy before they were parted. It was something she was sure Tommy wanted, and at the same time, it was something Bill knew would serve as a reminder of everything they could share once Bill returned.

"Mom told me to pick up some things on my way home," Tommy said, lifting a hand in apology before she grabbed her enormous red sweater and pulled it on. Color-coordinated as ever, Tommy was wearing a red cap trimmed with white fake fur, rather like a cross between a Santa cap and a modified headband to hold her dreadlocks away from her face. "Much as I'd love to stay and distract you from your packing, I should stop off at home first, at least."

"Oh. Right." Bill's shoulders slumped, defeated. She pulled her foot away from the package beneath the bed.

"Now, if you want me to come back later..." Tommy began, swinging around as she finished adjusting her bra over her round, firm breasts.

Bill nodded, biting her lip.

"Besides, I'm sure you've got a handle on which skirt looks best with which set of leggings..." Tommy said, giving her a teasing half-smile. "It's not like I'm much use to you, there."

Bill nodded, sucked in a breath, and looked down toward the foot of her bed. She blurted, "You'll still be waiting for me when I get back, right?"

Tommy's eyes went wide as she regarded Bill, speechless for an instant as she blinked. "Of course I will!" she exclaimed. "Bills, what's up...why this question?"

Bill shrugged one shoulder, uncomfortable in her own skin as a sick burn started up in her middle. "Chantelle kind of said, or well, she implied..."

"Chantelle is a ho," Tommy said at once, stepping close to Bill, putting a hand on her arm.

"Oh? And you'd know about that?" Bill shot back before she thought, pulling away from Tommy's touch. Chantelle's smirk rose up in her mind's eye. She'd never thought, before, about the girls Tommy had slept with before they'd gotten together. There had been the implication that it was a lot. Bill had never had any faces to associate with the prospect before Chantelle, though, and it gave substance and reality to the fact of Tommy with someone else. "She seems to think you'll be 'all over her again' when I leave for Germany."

Tommy's face turned stormy. "I don't want to talk about Chantelle," she said, her face closing down. "I'm here with you, and she's got nothing to do with you."

"But I'm leaving," Bill said quietly, almost inaudibly. She folded her arms around herself in a cheerless hug. Bill knew all too well how it worked. There would be a Christmas celebration, or a New Year's celebration. Everyone would be invited, and Tommy would go, of course, because there'd be beer. There would be a keg, low lighting, a crowded dance floor, a comfortable niche away from the press of bodies.

The flash of an image pierced through her, Chantelle twined around Tommy beneath a sprig of mistletoe, and it was sharp enough to make Bill bite her lip and regard the floor, pained.

"That's what this is about?" Tommy's voice, high and incredulous, brought Bill's gaze back up. Tommy finished donning her clothes with quick, jerky movements, standing there with her hands on her hips. "You're going on vacation, and you don't trust me to wait."

"It's not...it's not that I don't..." Bill began weakly. It all sounded so feeble when Tommy spoke it aloud, spitting the words so fiercely at Bill that she wanted to flinch.

Tommy gave her a long, level look. "If you don't trust me," she said, her voice dreadfully quiet, "then maybe you ought to think about whether you want to be with me."

Bill's mouth dropped open. "Of course I--"

"Because I love you," Tommy continued heatedly, "and I've made sure you know that, Bill, but I've never heard the same from you."

"What? But that's not--" Bill floundered, completely sidelined from the argument they'd been having. She felt as though Tommy had driven them off the track into the swamp of Bill's insecurities. Though the argument they had been getting into had been initiated by her own fear that Tommy would leave her, after all, so Bill supposed it was all the same. "No, that's not true." Cold fear congealed in her stomach, weighing it down. Tommy was talking as though she really would leave her, and all she was trying to do was _keep_ her, even as Bill herself left the country for far too long.

"You've never said," Tommy said softly. Her eyes flickered from Bill's to a far point of the room. "I've been waiting for it."

"I...I...but, you've said it, and I've..." Bill trailed off, her hands grasping at the air. She felt the same way. Her heart was alight in her chest whenever Tommy told her she loved her.

"You've said 'me too,'" Tommy finished. Her brown eyes burned as she met Bill's gaze again. "That's what you say when you want to avoid letting the other person down, you know? You don't want to leave them without a response...but you're not saying the same thing."

Bill's mouth worked. "Tommy, I..."

Tommy began to nod as Bill's throat closed.

It was too much pressure. It was something buried so deep inside of her she would have to claw it out and even then, she was afraid. If she let that emotion free, if she exposed it to the light of day, it was out there and she couldn't take it back, she couldn't keep it safe inside of her.

It would be Tommy's, to cherish or destroy.

"I swore to myself I'd never push you, Bill," Tommy said quietly. "And I'm not going to do that now, even though you're sure as hell pushing me – about something I've never given you cause to doubt, and never will. So I think I'd better leave."

Bill's mouth was still open. She closed it, swallowing dumbly. "Tommy, please."

"I'll see you later," Tommy told her, picking up her coat from the nearby chair.

Bill's feet were rooted to the floor. " _Tommy--_ "

Tommy paused in the doorway, her dark brows raised inquiringly.

Even though it meant Tommy leaving, the words still wouldn't come. _I love you._ Three words, so simple and irrevocable to Bill, because she refused to ever make a promise that couldn't be broken, and that was what those words meant to her. Once you loved someone, there was no taking it back.

And Bill was so afraid. Not of Tommy, but of herself. How could she be that much to anyone?

Tommy broke into a breathtaking smile even as her eyes shimmered. She reached up to twitch the fuzzy white brim of her Santa cap. "Goodnight, Bills."

"Goodnight," the word squeaked out. Her voice would work for that. She dropped her gaze, ashamed, and twisted her hands together.

There was only one day more, and she wouldn't see Tommy for three weeks. She couldn't even voice how much she loved her.

Bill slumped down to the floor beside her suitcases, mired in absolute despair. Tommy was gone, and not only had she failed to communicate her intentions – I want to be with you, I want to keep you, I want to make sure no one else can take you away from me – but even worse, it sounded as though Tommy's words had been the presage to a break-up. It was true that Tommy told her on all occasions or none that she loved her.

Those were three words that Bill didn't have much practice saying aloud, let alone delivering in any other fashion.

Her eyes were hot, but when Bill scrubbed angrily at the back of one eye with her wrist, the only thing that came away was a smear of black makeup. _I love you, and I can't do this anymore._ They were one step away from that point, and it was Bill's fault.

The ring of her phone in the stillness of the room was startling, and Bill's head jerked up. She'd gotten a new phone from Jorg as a pre-Christmas gift, a phone with worldwide calling capabilities, and it was still set to the shrill old-fashioned rotary style ringer that had come as the default ring-tone.

She scrambled to her feet and rushed across the room, hoping it would be Tommy calling from the car, assuring her that she'd come back. Tommy was usually first to apologize, even when Bill was first to blow up. Bill was counting on that generous nature, otherwise she wasn't quite sure how to bail herself out of the mess that she, herself, had created.

Sure, Tommy had been with other girls before. She hadn't so much as looked at anyone else the entire time she had been with Bill, though, and why had Bill let herself believe Chantelle's words rather than her own girlfriend's actions?

"Hello?" Bill said, her voice husky as she answered the phone. She grimaced. She _sounded_ as though she had been crying. 

"Are you packing?" Jorg wanted to know.

Bill sighed and scrubbed at her face, tired and deflated. She trotted back toward her bed which had several piles of clothing on it, and scooped a folded pile of shirts into the open suitcase at her feet. "What of it?" she demanded between her teeth. "I'll be ready for the flight time tomorrow, so--"

"Belay that," Jorg interrupted.

"Huh?" Bill returned.

"Don't grunt, Bills, it's not ladylike," Jorg told her. "Something has come up here at work, and I need to push our trip back. I've already exchanged the tickets, so you don't need to pack."

Bill blinked a few times and stared down into the open suitcase. "So when are we going?" she asked, bracing herself. Jorg said he'd exchanged the tickets, not canceled entirely.

"Next week," Jorg said. "We'll use up the rest of your break from school – oh, and we can take that girlfriend of yours, if she wants to come and her parents will let her."

"Oh," Bill said, in a very small voice.

"That is, if she has a passport--"

"That's not the issue," Bill interjected, her heart so full of that look Tommy had given her in the doorway. She had looked as though she was saying goodbye for real, and hadn't wanted to. Tommy had a passport, Bill knew – her family had been to London, and a family trip to Australia. But would she want to use it, now? "She...may not want to go with me, after some of the things I said today."

No matter what Chantelle wanted, Tommy's own say in the matter was what determined whether anything could happen. No one could accuse Tommy of being anything less than strong-willed.

It was how she'd won Bill over, after all.

"Bills," Jorg said patiently. "I've seen you two together. Tommy loves you. If she wants to come to Berlin with us, she's more than welcome. You let her know, all right?"

Bill mumbled something vaguely assenting.

"You going to be okay by yourself?" Jorg sighed on the other end of the line, and Bill could picture him running his hand through his crisp, sandy blond hair, the same dark gold her own hair would be, if she stopped dyeing it. "The situation is critical here, or I wouldn't be pushing the trip back. I'm going to be in the office until late."

"Mmf," Bill mumbled, because she wasn't sure if 'okay' applied to her state of mind, exactly.

"Bills..." Jorg uttered, and there was a question in his voice.

If she asked it, Bill knew her father would come home. He'd put aside everything and bring a pizza with him, and they'd demolish it together while complaining there was nothing on television, and later he would creep up to his study and work until well past midnight.

"I'm okay," Bill said, forcing her voice to be steady. She rubbed at her eye again as her pulse throbbed in her throat with extra violence for a moment while she held her breath.

"That's my girl," Jorg said. "I'll be home later. Order whatever you want if you can't wait, and email me if you want me to bring anything home."

"Marzipan cake?" Bill replied, trying not to quaver. She loved the cake he'd brought home from the Swedish bakery for her birthday, months ago. They had pigged out until she'd been sure she was going to throw up.

"I'll make it happen."

"Dad," Bill spoke up, sensing her father was on the verge of ending the call. She didn't say it often enough, neither of them did. She needed to make sure she still knew how. "I love you."

There was a brief, stomach-lurching second of silence before Jorg's words returned to her. "I love you, too, Bills."

Bill sat beside her open suitcases after the call was ended, phone in her lap as the first tear slid down her face. It was joined by another, and another. She willed her phone to ring but it was silent in her hands.

She could have all she wanted for Christmas, if only she could swallow her pride. There was something that Tommy needed to hear from her, and it was a lot more difficult than an apology.

Bill had always been terrible at overcoming her pride. She didn't know how to reach out and make that first gesture, even now when it mattered most.


	7. seventh

After several long moments of sitting immobilized while her fingers crimped together over the silent cell phone, Bill pulled herself together. Her shoulders quivered with soundless quakes as she passed through the room like a wraith, flitting from the unnecessary open suitcase to the bathroom sink. She rubbed at her face and removed her makeup with unsteady swipes of thick astringent-smelling pads.

For the first time in a long time, Bill found herself at a loss for what to do. Unpack? Go to sleep? Follow the sagacity of movie advice and drown her tears in a pint of ice cream while she watched bad rom-coms? She was better than that.

Bill squared her shoulders. She was Jorg Kaulitz's daughter, she was Bill Kaulitz. She could do anything. All she needed was a plan and the will to succeed.

She had to bury her face in her hands for a few moments longer, angry with herself for letting Tommy leave, to begin with. Even if she hadn't been able to say _those_ words, she should have been able to say _something_.

Bill returned to her bed with its peeled-down sheets and the soft but unmistakable scent of their sex, of the arousal they had shared not long ago. She wanted it back. She wanted Tommy in her arms.

She collapsed across the bed, grabbing at the nearest pillow and burying her face in it. When she turned her head, she could detect the hint of coconut dread wax and other little scent notes that reminded her of Tommy.

_Tchok. Tik, tik, tchok._

Bill's head rose from the pillow, and her hair ruffled up like a crest. She looked around for the source of the noise. It almost sounded like hail across the rooftop, but it had been such a short spate of it that it must have been something else.

_Tik. Tik, tik._

Bill's head turned and she looked out the nearest window, surprised to see snow fluttering down in thick, fat flakes across the darkness of the sky. She wiped at her eyes and got up from the bed. Maybe there was a squirrel on the drain pipe.

She went to go look at the snow falling outside of her window, hardly the year's first snowfall but this one would be just in time to blanket the lawns before Christmas.

A patter of stones sprayed against her window as Bill reached for the latches that kept it securely closed. Bill flinched back, confused for a moment before she stepped as close as she could and peered down toward the back patio.

"Tommy?" she whispered.

The tall figure of Tommy in her bright red sweater was unmistakable against a white backdrop of snow, clearly visible in the patio light fixtures that flicked on automatically when someone triggered the motion sensors. Bill stared for a second longer, her brain working to catch up with the unexpected sight. She couldn't quite smile as she hurried to unlatch the window with numb fingers and pushed it wide open, leaning over the sash.

"What are you doing here?" Bill called out, and clapped a hand to her mouth. It was hardly what she'd wanted to say upon first seeing her Tommy after such an ugly parting.

"Being stupidly romantic!" Tommy called back. "Come down here."

Bill shivered across the windowsill. "But it's so cold," she said, her mouth tugging up in a grateful counterpoint to the sheer excess of misery she had dipped into, not so long ago. Tommy was _here,_ and she wanted to be romantic, and Bill knew somehow that even if she didn't speak a word of what she intended, she was forgiven.

"Wear that fur-lined coat of yours!" Tommy called back.

"Hmph," Bill uttered, retracting back into the warm haven of her room and sliding the window shut.

She grabbed her peacoat, because fur was murder, after all, and zoomed through the wide-open, empty hallways of the house until she reached the back patio, the closest point to where she'd seen Tommy standing. It was snowing, and she'd only managed to grab a pair of chunky platform shoes to slip over her bare feet, but Bill didn't care as she pushed her way through the French door, leaving it partially ajar in blatant disrespect for power-saving conventions. The door locked automatically and she hadn't grabbed her keys.

Bill hugged her arms, rubbing at them as though they were capable of generating heat from the motion, and stared in wordless awe at the tableau that had been set up outside her house.

At the far corner of the patio, a drum kit had been set up and Gustav was hunched over it, his gaze meeting Bill's briefly as he tapped out a beat. His eyes flicked to the side and Bill glanced that way; Georg stood off to her right, striking up a bass line as he shook his long chestnut hair over one coat-swaddled shoulder. He wore a ski jacket zippered up to the chin and his eyes were downcast.

Bringing her attention center stage, Bill aligned herself with Tommy, her whole face – her very being – suffused with warmth and complete emotion, the overpowering feeling to which she couldn't give voice.

"You planned this," Bill whispered.

Tommy's steady hand moved over the strings of her guitar, pulling together the melody that Gustav and Georg had created. Her brown eyes soulful on Bill's, she began to sing, rough but enthusiastic.

"I'll have a blue Christmas without you..."

Bill didn't know whether to dissolve into laughter or tears. She burst into a grin, touched beyond measure that Tommy had done this – she'd set this up for Bill, clearly, and when she had told her she was leaving to pick up something for her mother, it was the excuse to slip out here and pull this surprise for Bill, instead.

"Oh," Bill murmured, overcome. She laced her chilled fingertips together and blew on them. Tommy thought she was leaving.

"I'll be so blue just thinking about you..."

Bill held her sincere brown eyes with her own and could only smile in response, hoping that a fraction of the depth of her emotion was conveyed in return. Tommy thought she was leaving, and despite the things that had been said, and even Tommy questioning Bill's commitment, she had still come back to do this for her.

"Won't be the same, dear, if you're not here with me...I'll have a blue, blue Christmas."

A quavering note hung suspended on the air as their eyes remained locked on one another's. The sensation welled up in Bill's chest until she couldn't contain it anymore. Her eyes were stinging and her face was hot and ice-numb at the same time.

"So," Tommy summed up awkwardly, "I wanted to come back and make sure you knew how much I'm going to miss you." She shifted from one foot to the other, her right hand going up to the base of her neck.

"I love you," Bill uttered.

"What was that?" Tommy uttered with a blink.

"You guys really suck," Bill said, projecting her voice louder. "You need a singer."

"Yeah, Tommy's got a voice suited for yelling, not singing," Georg contributed, grinning when Tommy swung his direction with a 'hey!'

"Is that so," Tommy returned, her eyes heated as she looked Bill's way once more.

"Yeah," Bill said, crunching across the first icy sheen of snow that had formed on the patio flagstones. She hurried across the distance between them on a straight line for Tommy, quickening her steps as she went.

As soon as Tommy realized Bill wasn't stopping, she thrust her guitar in Georg's direction, disentangling the strap and spreading her arms wide. They collided with an oof and Tommy's arms tightened around her as Bill nosed her cold nose against Tommy's colder neck and whispered, "I love you, I love you" against the fine dark blond hairs that twisted up from her neck to join the base of the nearest dreadlock. Tommy smelled so good, spicy and sweet all at once, more than a little bit like a boy, but she was the butch to Bill's femme and Bill liked it that way.

"You what?" Tommy teased, clutching Bill to her with one arm as she cupped her free hand to her ear. "I can't quite make that out. What is it you're saying?"

Bill drew herself up and shoved a hand at Tommy's ribs. "I love you," she repeated, loud enough that a deaf person might have a chance of hearing. "And, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things." She looked over Tommy's shoulder at Georg, who was looking up at the falling snow with his lips pursed, pretending not to listen; and Gustav, who had already begun to break down his drum kit into black cases nearby.

"It's all right," Tommy said, and both arms went around Bill, snug and tight. "I love you, too, so I forgive you."

Bill pursed her lips, trying to find something wrong with that. They had fought...Tommy had walked out...wasn't there something she could pin on Tommy, so that she wasn't sole owner of the blame? She dismissed the thought in the next instant, still glowing and magnanimous from the beautiful gesture Tommy had pulled off on her very doorstep.

"Thank you," Bill said. "You might not want to sing again, though. You need someone who's not tone deaf." She kissed Tommy's neck; she had loved her song, because it was Tommy singing it for her, but that was the extent of it.

"Are you offering?" Tommy asked her.

"Maybe," Bill said coyly, burying her face against Tommy's neck again and making her flinch with the sudden shock of icy skin to skin. She wormed her arms around Tommy's waist and hugged her tight, heedless of the cold so long as Tommy was holding her like this, stroking her back and planting tiny kisses near to her ear and jaw.

"But you liked it anyhow?" Tommy prompted, kissing further up her jaw when Bill stirred in her arms. They swayed together as though initiating a slow-dance.

"Mm," Bill agreed. She pulled back to look Tommy in the eye, smiling. She was so warm and comfortable, flush with accomplishment and the nearness of Tommy, love alight in every atom, every point where they connected.

"Because I'm amazing," Tommy concluded smugly.

"Hmph," Bill snorted, but she was smiling, wound so closely around Tommy she could have passed for a second skin, conjoined twin.

Tommy began to kiss her jaw, clearly heading for her mouth, and Bill turned her head, getting a sloppy kiss to her ear with the first hint of tongue as she eyed up Georg, who was still making quite a show of watching the snow drifting from the smudged dark sky overhead. She bit her lip.

"Do you guys want to come inside for some hot cocoa, or something?" Bill offered, making eye contact with Gustav, too, to make it clear that he was invited. She pulled back until she was in the half-circle of her girlfriend's arm.

Tommy made a flapping motion with one hand and Bill peered around her, quirking her mouth and right brow as Tommy lifted that same hand to her dreadlocks, making a show of adjusting them over one shoulder. She'd been waving the guys off.

"Nah, it's okay," Georg declined. "You two enjoy the evening. We'll bundle all of this stuff into Gustav's van and be on our way. Merry Christmas, ladies." He turned toward a pair of guitar-shaped cases.

"Besides," Gustav added, dry, "Tommy gave us coffee money for our trouble." 

"My first paying gig," Georg cracked, clapping Gustav's shoulder in passing.

Bill narrowed her eyes. Both young men had an excellent sense of rhythm and they had played well. If she had her way, it wouldn't be their last paying gig. Bill could do anything once she set her mind to it, after all. And she _did_ know how to sing.

She shivered in the circle of Tommy's arm as warm, wet lips enclosed her nearest earlobe.

"Come on," Tommy spoke directly into her ear. "I want to enjoy the last few uninterrupted hours together that we've got left."

Bill grinned and wriggled on her toes, excited over the surprise she had to share. The cold was starting to permeate her bones, making its way past the thrill of love and accomplishment over sharing with Tommy. They crossed the patio back to the kitchen door, leaving behind two sets of footprints to over-write the lone set that had gotten her there.

In the kitchen, Bill's teeth chattered and Tommy rubbed Bill's hands between her own, grasping at her arms and unzipping her jacket, opening the front of Bill's coat and pressing them together from collarbones to navel.

"You don't need to worry about Chantelle," Tommy told her, speaking over the stuttering soundtrack of Bill's teeth clacking together.

Bill shuddered and nuzzled against Tommy's neck. Though Tommy had been out in the cold longer, she seemed to warm up faster. "I know," she spoke up, quiet but firm. She'd already worked that much out for herself.

"I did try to get with her," Tommy said. "Months ago."

"I'm not sure I want to hear this," Bill replied, beginning to wriggle in their close embrace. "So long as it was before me..."

"It was," Tommy assured her, and her arms tightened around Bill. "But there was nothing to confess, okay? I tried to, well, hook up with her, but she started trashing me behind my back and that was it."

Bill blinked. Her stomach loosened from its queasy knot. "That's it?"

"That's it," Tommy repeated. "She only wants me now, because she can see how happy I am with you. With you, not her." She stroked a flyaway piece of Bill's hair back from her face.

"That's messed up," Bill said. She was irked at letting herself be misled by Chantelle's outright lie. She thought back to that moment. She'd asked Chantelle if she'd slept with Tommy...and the little cheerleading bitch hadn't denied it. That was all.

Bill's mouth flattened. She hoped Chantelle wasn't too attached to whatever outfit she wore to the next party they mutually attended.

"I don't want to talk about her," Tommy replied simply. "She's dogged me long enough. I just want to be with you, and enjoy it until tomorrow, okay?"

Bill's face lit up as she recalled her plan, the phone call, and her father's invitation. So much roller coaster despair and joy in one evening, she could barely ride it out. "Come upstairs," she invited. "I have your Christmas present."

"But, I don't want--" Tommy started.

Bill laid her fingers over Tommy's plush lips. "Trust me," Bill said, and bit her lip over a shy smile. "This is what you've been wanting."

She led Tommy upstairs, sliding her peacoat off her shoulders and casting it to the side as they reached the doorway of her room.

Everything was as she had left it, bed half unmade where they had pushed the covers down, suitcases open at the foot of the canopied bed, cell phone left in the middle of the room. The bathroom light was still on.

"What do you want most for Christmas, Tommy?" Bill inquired, turning around and trying not to smile too widely. This would backfire on her if she wasn't right in having finally guessed it.

Tommy shook her head, fixing her gaze on the floor. "You know I don't want you to get me anything--" she started.

"Tell me," Bill insisted. "I'm not talking about gifts, now. I want to know, I want to hear it. What do you want for Christmas?"

Tommy's eyes lifted and she met Bill's gaze with ferocious intensity. "You, okay?" she demanded roughly, striding across the distance and seizing Bill's shoulders in her hands. "All I want is you. And I can't, so Christmas is going to suck without you, and—"

Bill prised out of Tommy's grip enough to surge forward and join their mouths, interrupting Tommy's tirade with a mushy but enthusiastic kiss across her parted lips.

"You can," Bill whispered, when she pulled back enough to look into Tommy's half-closed brown eyes. "You can has."

Tommy's fingers flexed on her shoulders. "What are you saying? That...that you're with me, even if you're all the way over in Berlin?"

Bill shook her head, her mouth tugging upward of its own will. "I'm saying, Dad pushed back our flight dates, and--"

An ardent whoop from Tommy cut her off before she could go any further, and Tommy picked her right up off the floor, hugging Bill around the waist and crushing their bodies together. Tommy had a good grip on her and swung her around in a full circle before putting her down, cradling her close and spreading kisses from her ear down toward her mouth.

"Bill, my Bills," Tommy chanted. "Mine, all mine, I'll have you for Christmas, and I'll have you again..."

"All yours," Bill promised, threading her hands beneath Tommy's dreadlocks to hold tightly to her nape. She grinned as Tommy dotted an enthusiastic kiss on her nose. "And Dad said you can come to Berlin with us after Christmas, if you're willing?"

"Are you kidding?" Tommy exclaimed, and spun Bill around in another dizzy circle, tighter than the first. Laughing, they stumbled toward the bed, connecting their lips again and again in hazy, excited kisses, each blurring into the next, and the next.

"My father's not much of a kidder," Bill replied, wry.

Tommy kissed the bridge of her nose, working down the slope and placing a longer kiss on her upper lip before poking her tongue into Bill's mouth.

Bill squeaked but opened readily enough to Tommy's kiss. She wound her hands in the soft piled mass of Tommy's dreadlocks, stroking, cupping the delicate bones at the base of Tommy's skull.

"I would not miss the chance to meet your German peeps for the world," Tommy informed her, kissing the divot below Bill's nose and looking down at her, eyes warm, before bending to kiss more of Bill's face, from the mole beneath her chin to the one on her temple.

"My peeps?" Bill protested, but she was feeble beneath Tommy's advances, as a hand massaged her waist and they tipped onto the bed together. Another hand was going for her track pants and Bill squeaked louder, remembering a reason to resist. "Wait, no!"

Tommy froze atop her, nose at Bill's jawline and one hand up Bill's shirt, her fingers tracing out the lower curve of one slight breast.

"No?" she returned, managing to sound pathetic and indignant all at once.

"No," Bill said firmly, sitting up and pushing Tommy off her lap. A butterfly swirl of nervousness funneled up her middle, fanning her face with heat in passing. "I need to go to the bathroom. I'll be _right_ back, okay?"

Tommy pouted, tugging up her giant red sweater to reveal a toned slice of midsection. "All right, but if you take too long, I'm getting started without you."

Bill raised both brows, giving Tommy her best approximation of a devilish smirk. "I think I'm worth waiting for...don't you?"

" _Damn_ it, Bill!" Tommy cried out, pounding the mattress with a thwarted fist as Bill slipped out of range. "When you put it that way, what am I supposed to do?"

"Keep it in your pants," Bill advised mischievously. She hurried to the bathroom, making a brief stop at her dresser along the way. She had something worth waiting for, she hoped, but considering she was just as eager for it, she certainly didn't want to keep Tommy waiting for long.

There were presents to be unwrapped, after all; and this one wouldn't wait for Christmas morning.


	8. eighth

Bill stood before the bathroom mirror for a moment longer, sucking air between her teeth as she appraised the long, lean figure she saw before slipping her loose leopard-print gray gradation shirt over her head. She was wearing a new bra, silky black, its padded cups providing the illusion of a bosom beneath the gray shirt. Unlike her usual, the sleeping shirt was large and loose enough to slip off one shoulder, which it generally did. Most importantly, it was baggy enough to disguise the lines of her body and hide her little surprise. She had taken just enough time to wash up and get ready for the best part of the evening to come.

"Bills!" Tommy called out from her bedroom. "I need you!" She did, indeed, sound very needy.

With a smile tugging at her mouth, Bill opened the door and lounged against the side for a moment, striking a pose with her hip cocked out and one arm stretched above her head. Her other hand fanned over her hip and Bill considered the possibility of getting a tattoo there, a sexy peekaboo star. "You need me?" she prompted.

"It was on my fortune cookie. I need you," Tommy said, pushing up on her elbows to connect their gazes darkly. She added with a trace of a smirk, "In bed."

Bill's lips curved in a fond, faintly teasing smile. "You're in _my_ bed," she pointed out, coming to a stop at the carved footboard.

"Whatever; a bed was involved," Tommy replied with a flick of her fingers. She pushed her hips up, shifting on the bed and licking her lips. "Fuck, you look so good. I wanna finger you."

"I want more than that," Bill told her, stooping briefly to fetch the package that had been hidden under her dust ruffle since its discreet arrival from vibrators.com.

"Oral, then," Tommy promised, the hint of a moan in her voice. "I want to taste you, suck your little clit, make you come and lick it up, wanna..."

"More," Bill said hoarsely, stepping around the side of the bed with the gaily wrapped box in her hands.

"Baby, what more--" Tom began, and stopped herself, leaning on one elbow as Bill reached her side.

"I got you something," Bill said, ducking her head and giving Tommy a sidelong glance as though shy about it.

She wasn't shy in the least; not anymore. She was throbbing with anxiety and desire to have Tommy's beautifully-shaped fingers on her, the two of them rubbing every inch of skin across one another as they strove for their pleasure.

"But, I told you not to--" Tommy started, and cut off as Bill climbed onto the bed beside her.

"Trust me," Bill said, nuzzling close to Tommy's ear and burrowing into the circle of her arm. "You want to unwrap this."

"Rather unwrap you," Tommy muttered, hooking her close and pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

"We'll get to that," Bill replied with a short chuckle. She patted Tommy's thigh, butting their heads close together as though she were a headstrong kitten. "This first."

"All I wanted was you," Tommy grumbled reproachfully as she began to tear at the bright red and gold wrapping paper. "You didn't have to--" She fell silent as she pulled the box free of its enshrouding paper.

"If you don't like it, we can get a different one..." Bill began, stroking over Tommy's arm and leaning to peer anxiously at her face.

Tommy's expression was unreadable, her tongue dwelling against her lip ring as she regarded the box in her lap. There was a clear window through which the red silicon dildoes were visible, as well as part of the black harness that would keep one strapped around Tommy's slender hips.

"I wasn't sure, I mean, you only mentioned--" Bill continued.

She was interrupted as a kiss was mashed to her lips.

"Are you sure?" Tommy asked, speaking directly against her parted lips. "Those are definitely boy-shaped..."

"But you're not a boy," Bill concluded. "We're doing this together, and it's not like..." Bill squirmed, pushing her face against Tommy's shoulder.

"It's not like you want me to _be_ a boy, because we're using dildoes," Tommy concluded.

"Mm-hmm," Bill murmured.

Tommy grinned and kissed her again. "My point exactly," she said. She patted Bill's thigh and got up from the bed, taking the box with her.

Bill whined in her throat, ready to unleash a pout.

"I'm going to go wash these, okay?" Tommy told her. "Then we can use this, together." She leaned over Bill with a hand stroking her arm, pressing light butterfly kisses over her upturned face before drawing away.

"Yes, please," Bill murmured, tipping back on the bed as her girlfriend retreated. She opened and closed her thighs as heat began to spread from her middle. She wanted Tommy to unwrap her other present, now, and she wanted it _immediately._

"Did they send some antibiotic toy cleaner with it?" Tommy called, already headed for the bathroom with her prize.

"Yes, it's on the bathroom counter," Bill called back, skimming restless hands up her shirt and passing them over her stomach, stroking her thumbs over her lowest ribs. She wanted Tommy on her now, in her arms, their bellies pressed together...not to mention, she was getting increasingly eager over the prospect of using the toy she'd gotten, the two of them connecting in one of the most intimate ways possible.

"Found it!" Tommy exclaimed, and the sound of running water followed.

Bill continued to stroke her hands up and down her front, from ribs to hips, avoiding her more sensitive regions. Their positions were reverted now; she was the one on the bed, one giant exposed nerve of neediness, waiting for Tommy to return to her so they could press together and make each other feel good. She wanted to draw up all of the most pleasurable sensations from Tommy that would give her pleasure, too, and show her exactly how cherished Tommy made her feel.

She pushed her shirt up a bit in her urgency but continued to stay away from actual erogenous zones. Bill teased her fingers over the skin of her belly between her navel and her panty-line. She wanted more, but she wanted Tommy to go there.

When Tommy appeared in the doorway, Bill was breathless with anticipation.

"I need you," Bill informed her, knowing exactly where Tommy had been coming from moments before. Her entire body craved a dose of Tommy, the two of them pressed skin to skin, breasts to breasts and more. Her imagination was blasting ahead, guns blazing along the track as she considered Tommy on her, something between them _in_ her, and the two of them moving together in beautiful synchronicity.

"I'm going to make you feel so good," Tommy responded, crossing the distance between them with the toy in one arm and a towel slung over the other.

Bill could only smile up at her, bemused and basking in love, in all the little ways Tommy took care of her. She held out an arm as Tommy climbed onto the bed beside her.

"Love you," Bill gave breathless voice to it again.

Tommy's whole face lit up and she draped herself atop Bill, setting the toy to one side on top of the towel. One hand caressed Bill's face and she closed the gap, her beautiful brown eyes fixed on Bill until their lips touched, and their eyes slid shut at last.

Bill looped her arms around Tommy's neck, caressing her back over the red sweater she'd donned, reveling in the feel of the ropy soft dreadlocks tickling her bare arms. Tommy was propped over her on one arm but her other hand was making a fast track up Bill's shirt, smoothing over her hip and her abdomen and feathering over her ribs, making Bill squirm.

"Touch me," Bill murmured against the corner of Tommy's mouth, before dotting a kiss there.

" _Am_ touching you," Tommy countered with a hint of a chuckle in her mischievous husky voice before she brought her hand up higher, cupping the slightness of Bill's breast.

"Ohh," Bill sighed in pleasure, "like _that._ " She hooked a leg over Tommy's thigh and pushed her hips up, rubbing softly. Heat was gathering between her legs, and she knew her panties were getting damp already. She was always wet for Tommy; it was a source of occasional embarrassment to Bill and pride for Tommy.

"I'm going to get you nice and wet," Tommy said into her ear as though reading her mind.

"Mmm," Bill hummed helpfully, pressing herself up against Tommy's groin.

Tommy kissed her leisurely, thoroughly, with such attention and slow swipes of tongue that she made it clear they weren't going anywhere for hours, as well as the fact that she was in control of the kiss. Every time Bill whimpered and tried to kiss back harder, pushing lips and urgent tongue against her, Tommy would settle more heavily atop her and begin to nuzzle and tongue along Bill's jaw and neck until Bill subsided beneath her again.

At last Bill was a writhing mess beneath her and kept trying to grind her hips up against Tom with low "uh, uhmm" noises as Tommy kept chaining maddening kisses from her mouth to her ear, the sensitive spot behind it, and down to her neck.

"If you don't fuck me I'm going to have an orgasm just from the two of us rubbing off," Bill warned. She pushed her hands at Tommy's unyielding shoulders.

Tommy smirked over at her, sitting up on Bill's groin and peeling her red sweater off, tossing it to the side of the bed. "Really," Tommy replied with an interested eyebrow quirk. She was bare-breasted beneath, and Bill reached for them.

"Nnnh," Bill groaned, grinding her teeth as Tommy leaned down to palm both her breasts, leaning against her but not putting her weight on Bill's chest. "Yeah, and I...I want..."

"I want your shirt off," Tommy told her, tugging at the hem.

"Oh, uh-huh," Bill responded vaguely. She wriggled out of it, casting it after Tommy's, and lay there panting as Tommy looked down at her with hungry dark eyes, like Bill was the buffet and Tommy hadn't eaten all week. For an instant Bill thought Tommy was going to bend down and lavish her kisses further down, paying attention to her tiny breasts with their tight nipples, but instead Tommy scooted back to kneel between Bill's legs.

"Now I want you naked," Tommy said.

"Oh, nnnh...and it's all about what you want," Bill responded, but her hips rose as Tommy began to peel her black starry-night sleeping pants down her thighs.

"Wow," Tommy uttered, and Bill lifted her head up to catch the look on her face. She was staring down at Bill's groin with a rapt look on her face. "All gift-wrapped for me, huh?"

"The rest of your gift," Bill muttered, torn between feeling stupid about it and grinning like a derp.

"It's everything I wanted," Tommy said softly, laying a hand on Bill's sternum. "Just you."

Bill turned her head to the side, biting her lip.

"Hey," Tommy said, stroking her thigh. "I mean it. All I want is you. We don't have to use the toy tonight--"

"But I want to," Bill blurted, and battled the instant fiery heat of a flush as Tommy chuckled, slipping her fingers beneath the red and gold ribbon that Bill had tied around her hips.

"What a pretty bow," Tommy said. "It's kind of a shame to unwrap it."

Bill arched her brow in response. "You want in these panties, it has to go."

Tommy ripped the bow off so quickly it cut into Bill's hips and she squeaked in surprise and discomfort. Tommy parted her thighs wider with one hand, trailing a finger along the hem of her green-stitched red panties.

"See," Tommy said in a conspiratorial tone. "You got into the Christmas spirit, just fine."

Bill groaned and flexed her buttocks, pushing her panty-shielded groin up against Tommy's hand. "I'd like something else in me, now."

"Patience," Tommy chided, but her eyes flashed and her tongue ran along the full line of her lip, working against the corner lip ring in a slow, lascivious reminder of her oral proclivities. She patted Bill's thigh before skimming her panties down.

With a sigh, Bill laid back against the pillows and cooperated as Tommy liberated her of the last shred of her clothing. She watched, the flutters of arousal in her stomach multiplying as Tommy skimmed her lips up the inside of one leg and licked her way up Bill's inner thigh, hovering above her cunt so close that her breath stirred against the hairless flesh.

"I don't think you have much of a hymen, but this will still probably be a bit uncomfortable at first," Tommy told her, stroking a thumb alongside Bill's labia, making her whimper and tighten with the intensity of her need. "So I want to make you as wet as possible before we..." She trailed off, tilting her head and raising a brow before she lowered her face to Bill's little hairless lips.

"Nnnnh...Tom," Bill sighed luxuriously as Tom pried her open with lips and the devoted movements of her tongue, licking right down into her and delving for Bill's clit at once. She certainly wasn't going to object to Tommy going down on her for any length of time, no matter what came after.

Tommy pressed her face right in, holding Bill's thighs down with both hands so that Bill couldn't close her legs around Tommy's head.

Bill sobbed and sighed; pressed her hands to the masses of Tommy's dreadlocks and rolled her hips to test Tommy's implacable grip. She kept asking for more, more, and the sparks of pleasure multiplied in her belly until she couldn't stand it anymore. She was about to buck up against an ecstatic constellation of sensation in response to Tommy's devoted lips and tongue when Tommy pulled back, her face flushed and her lips almost crimson.

"Oh, oh," Bill sobbed breathlessly, her orgasm denied.

"Ready?" Tommy asked her, nuzzling against her thigh.

"Come up here and kiss me," Bill ordered, holding her arms out.

Tommy's face did that instant brightening as she did whenever receiving an order from Bill that she really, really wanted to follow through on, or whenever she turned to find Bill's attention on her. She turned to one side and shed her pants and boxers before crawling up the length of Bill's body, kissing her naked bits as though mapping pleasure trails, and settled atop her.

"We could do this some more in a bit," Tommy suggested, pushing against Bill and rocking their groins together. The trimmed hair that lined Tommy's cunt tickled against Bill's mostly-bare bits and they both sighed before Tommy laid her lips against Bill's. 

They rocked together some more and Bill was awash in pleasure, Tommy's long fingers stroking her breasts. She tried to remember why there was anything necessary beyond the beautiful sensations they were giving to each other now.

Tommy nipped at Bill's lower lip, kissing her chin and rocking harder atop her. "We can kiss all you want, when I'm pushing that toy back and forth between us."

"Ohh," Bill moaned, grasping at Tommy's shoulders. "What are you waiting for? Stop teasing me and let's do it." She was intensely curious to see how it would be different – not better, she was sure – but how it would change their lovemaking.

Her face burned as Tommy sat on top of her and Bill let herself consider the details again; Tommy with that toy jutting out from her groin, nestling it down into Bill's cunt and joining the two of them in one of the most intimate ways possible.

"Are _you_ wet enough?" Bill asked Tommy, recalling her words from shortly before she'd short-circuited Bill's brain with an excess of pleasure.

"Baby, I've been wet enough since you came out of the bathroom with your top slipped off one shoulder, cocking your hip out like that," Tommy murmured, leaning forward once more to brush her lips over Bill's.

Bill pursed her lips, but Tommy was already pulling away, reaching for the harness and the double-ended dildo fastened to the middle of it. She knelt up over Bill as she began to fiddle with straps and placement, and Bill watched with her lip caught between her teeth, half fascinated, the rest of her apprehensive. She folded her hands over her sternum as she gazed up at Tommy and the red dildo that bobbed gently between her thighs as she began to finesse everything into place.

"Oh," the soft sound escaped Bill's lips and she reached to stroke Tommy's thighs as Tommy pushed the red dildo into herself with a quiet, almost unheard grunt. There was no need to ask if Tommy had done this before. Bill tried not to pinch up in a frown as she considered faceless others that might have showed Tommy this pleasure. They were here together, now, and Tommy was doing this with her because she loved her, not merely to get off.

Tommy's eyes glittered down at her as her hand moved steadily down below, pushing the dildo deeper into herself as she hovered over Bill.

Bill stretched up, caught between staring at the sight of Tommy sinking the dildo into herself and gazing up into the intensity of Tommy's pleasure-stricken face. She stroked Tommy's legs, her arms, and reached up to cup her full breasts as Tommy moved atop her in small motions, adjusting the fit of the dildo before reaching for the straps of the harness that would keep it secured to her body.

Of the two of them, Tommy tended to be quieter in bed – and teased Bill about her loudness – so Bill had to go off the non-verbal cues that told of Tommy's arousal. Tommy was breathing faster, and her skin was scorching to Bill's fingertips as she caressed everywhere she could reach. Her eyes were huge and dark and her expression was faintly pained.

"Okay?" Bill murmured.

"God," Tommy gasped at last, as she finished securing the harness around her hips. "Want to get on you, so bad."

Bill reached for Tommy's neck, but her girlfriend was still sitting on top of her, effectively fixing her in place. "Please, please, I want that," she breathed, attempting to push up to show Tommy just how much. "Let's have sex, please, push it in me, I want to feel your lips against mine..."

She didn't mean their mouths, and Tommy's hooded eyes flared as though she knew exactly what Bill meant.

Still Tommy hesitated. "It's going to hurt a little," she murmured, moving forward to cup Bill's breasts. "You got us a pretty big one, it's the largest you've had."

Bill couldn't escape the heat of the blush fanning up into her face and spreading over her fair collarbones. "Well, then it suits your ego," she shot back, wriggling under Tommy and reaching up her arms to invite Tommy into them.

Tommy merely smiled down at her in response to that, her expression one of delight.

"I don't care if it hurts...at first," Bill said at last, begrudging the answer at all, but it appeared as though Tommy wasn't going to move without it. "I know you're going to make it good."

With a slow nod, Tommy covered her, moving into Bill's arms. Something nudged Bill between the legs and she parted her thighs wider to accept Tommy between them, catching her breath.

Tommy hovered over her like that a moment longer, one hand cupping Bill's breast, nudging their faces together as she sought her mouth. Her dreadlocks slid forward to veil their faces.

"I want it, I want you," Bill breathed against Tommy's mouth as Tommy drew back to lick her lips. She surged up and caught at Tommy's lip ring, nibbling there.

"Okay," Tommy said, but hovered and shared Bill's airspace for a moment longer, exhaling ragged breath against her lips and chin.

Bill stroked over her waist. "You'll make it good," she soothed.

Tommy grimaced. "That's a lot of pressure," she muttered.

Bill gave her a serene smile. "You can't help it. You're my Tommy." She squeezed her legs around Tommy's to give her encouragement.

"Okay..." Tommy said with a nod, but rested her head briefly against Bill's shoulder for a second before kissing it. She drew back to look Bill in the eye. "Tell me if it hurts."

_It won't,_ Bill thought, and the mutinous thought that she wouldn't tell Tommy flitted through her mind right after. It would pass, and Tommy might over-react...

"I mean it," Tommy said a bit more sharply, intuiting Bill's thoughts from her expression. "It shouldn't hurt too much."

Bill raised a brow. "Define 'too much,'" she countered.

"More than cramps during your period," Tommy replied.

Bill made a face. "That's so sexy," she mumbled, reaching up to grab Tommy's breast and rekindle the mood. Something unyielding was nudging at the crease between her legs and she knew what it was, and the heady mix of arousal and nerves reignited in the pit of her stomach. "Come on, make me feel good."

Tommy hummed deep in her throat and braced herself over Bill with one hand, reaching down between them.

Bill's eyes fluttered as Tommy's hand brushed over her groin, her thumb making a brief detour to rub at her clit. She squeezed her thighs around Tommy's trim hips and stared up into Tommy's dark, needy eyes as Tommy parted Bill's folds with her fingers before guiding the head of the toy to her entrance.

"Oh," the sound rose up from Bill's throat, starved and hoarse.

Tommy smiled down at her, tracing one side of Bill's entrance with her thumb before she eased some of her weight down onto her.

Bill bit her lip, brow knitting unconsciously as she took stock of the sensations. Tommy was propped above her, and the toy was entering her slowly. It was stretching her wider than anything she'd taken into her body, bigger than fingers or the slim vibrators Tommy had used on her so far. There was a slight burn but the warmth in her belly overrode any pain. She stroked Tommy's breasts and murmured a request for more. Much as Tommy's eyes searched her face anxiously, Bill was hungrily consuming every detail of Tommy's face, and behind the anxiety was heavy-lidded lust waiting to flare up and catch them both aflame. Tommy was hot, so hot for her, and Bill panted and eased her thighs wider and strained upward for the taste of Tommy's mouth against hers.

"Okay?" Tommy mumbled, before squeaking as the toy slid inside Bill unexpectedly and went in almost all the way.

A similar noise was surprised from Bill and she grabbed at Tommy's shoulders, startled and unsure whether she was turned on or in pain or some mix of both. She was throbbing, that much was for sure. She began to unwind from her tense clench as Tommy scattered kisses over her face, dwelling last on her lips. The hand that had been between them drifted up the length of Bill's body and stroked again and again over the tender silky flesh of the underside of Bill's left breast.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Bill assured her, but although she was sure of that, she wasn't sure whether she quite wanted to move yet. At that moment, she felt it – Tommy's sex pressed against her own, and the dildo was so deep inside her she ached. "Oh God, you're in me."

"Not technically," Tommy corrected, stroking up Bill's side and teasing her nipple to a fine point.

"Feels like you're in me," Bill murmured, pushing her hips up. The jolt of pleasure that went through her was astounding and she made a little noise, repeating the motion. Above her Tommy's mouth had fallen open and she looked pained again, but her own matching noise was anything but.

Hands stroked at her face and hair and Bill gaped in wonder at Tommy as the two of them began to move, slow at first. She turned her face up for a kiss, catching at the glint of Tommy's lip-ring when Tommy didn't respond quick enough to suit her. At that point their mouths crashed together and Tommy groaned directly into Bill, rolling her hips in slow but decisive movements that sent jabs of pleasure coursing through Bill.

"Unh, unnh!" Bill gave voice to the cresting sensation inside her, locking her hands behind Tommy's neck beneath the wild cascade of her dreadlocks. She was fully into it now, and not content with merely receiving Tommy's tentative thrusts. The dildo felt good inside her, but the way Tommy surged over her, making sweet little sex noises of which she probably wasn't even aware, was even better.

They kissed and rubbed their bodies together as Tommy worked her hips in taut circles. Bill gave her anxious yips in response, tightening her legs where she had them locked over Tommy's thighs every time it caused her to slow and peer worriedly into Bill's face.

"It's good, it's so good," Bill assured her, exhilarated and drained by turns. This was more energetic than even the wildest frottage they'd engaged in. At the same time, though, she didn't ever want Tommy to stop making her feel so good.

It seemed as though Tommy was everywhere atop her – kneading her breasts, skilled fingers toying with her nipples; mouth catching at Bill's and skimming along the line of her neck; bellies pressed together and their wet cunts colliding with emphatic smacks as Tommy fucked her. Spasms caused Bill to shudder with brief shockwaves of pleasure as she tightened down around the dildo Tommy was pushing into her – the same one embedded deep within Tommy, making her feel the same way. It wasn't even vibrating, and yet Bill was getting so much out of what they were doing that she was ready to come on the spot. A single touch, one lick, another jolt of Tommy's hips as she pushed into her would do it.

"I'm coming, you're making me come," Bill warned. She clutched at Tommy's shoulders and panted, once again surprised at how fast Tommy was bringing her to orgasm. She had no defenses against the surging pleasure Tommy brought to bear.

Tommy merely nodded, sending dreadlocks coursing everywhere as she continued to rock atop Bill, moving so fast their bodies were constantly connected. She reached down to grip Bill's leg, pushing one up and outward a bit more as she rolled deep inside of her. That accomplished, she began to thumb Bill's clit with single-minded insistence.

Bill wailed, tensing and clutching at Tommy with everything she had as she reached her climax. She wrapped her legs over Tommy's waist and butt and clamped down in the throes of it. "Tom, _Tom,_ " she cried out, hoarse, before her voice gave out and she cried out in a wordless burst of pleasure.

She relaxed in the next instant, though still clinging to Tommy as her lover panted in her ear and continued to thrust.

"Oh...oh, please," Bill cried, her back arching as she pushed her belly up against Tommy's.

"Too much?" Tommy panted in her ear. She kept moving, though, pushing into Bill with quick shallow hip-rolls that caused a pleasurable after-burn, almost painful but Tommy's face was so rapturous that all Bill could do was grin stupidly up at her and caress each part of Tommy that she could reach.

"I love you," Bill said fondly, hugging her thighs tight around Tommy and petting her dreadlocks.

Tommy's eyes went wide and she lurched over Bill, kissing her clumsily and wedging her hand between them again. She jerked atop Bill and sighed luxuriously.

Bill grinned, certain she'd felt it – the wetness of Tommy's come against her groin. She wrapped her arms around Tommy's shoulders and hugged her tight, squeaking as the dildo between them made itself known again as their groins kissed.

"Oh, that was..." Tommy sighed in her ear, before pulling off to the side.

"Mmm," Bill agreed, keeping an arm around her. She stroked over Tommy's bare waist as Tommy pulled out, both of them cringing reflexively. "You liked it?"

"It's the gift that keeps on giving," Tommy purred, kissing her face, nuzzling into Bill's neck and making her squeak at the ticklish sensation. "That was my question, for you."

"I loved it," Bill said honestly, shifting to accommodate as Tommy undid the harness and lifted up, reaching beyond their overlapping bodies to set the toy and harness aside on the nearby towel.

"Like you love Tommy?" Tommy pursued with an adorable little grin, before pushing her face into Bill's sweaty neck.

"Don't push it," Bill mumbled, but she was already hugging Tommy tight against her body again. "Of course what I feel for you is more."

Tommy laughed and nudged against her, rolling them across Bill's bed until Bill was laying atop her, their breasts pressed flat together. "Merry Christmas, Bills."

"Because of you," Bill replied, and followed it up with a kiss. "This one's the merriest."


	9. ninth

The snow was falling, soft and thick, around the eaves of the gigantic house. Bill stood beside the French lace curtains in the bay window of the front half of the kitchen, arms wrapped tightly across her front. It was Christmas Eve, and the house was empty. There would be no celebrations here.

"You ready to go?" a low voice murmured in her ear, and arms wrapped around her waist from behind.

Bill smiled, snuggling back into Tommy's embrace. She had never hosted a Christmas eve, and she wouldn't be starting a new tradition this year. The house was empty but for her and Tommy, and they were getting ready to go over to the Brandon house for the festivities.

"Your mom knows I'm spending the night, right?" Bill asked anxiously, twisting in Tommy's arms and sneaking a hand between them. Intending to place her fingers around Tommy's nape, she got distracted in passing and made a detour for the round firmness of a breast.

Tommy caught her breath and grinned at her. "No way is Mom letting us drive when she knows we'll have been at the champagne spritzers all night," she replied, kissing the tip of Bill's nose.

Bill wrinkled it. "Okay, but we're not having sex in your parents' house for everyone to hear..."

"You can be quiet if your head's buried between my legs, right?" Tommy inquired hopefully.

Bill gave her an exasperated look and pinched her breast. When Tommy yipped, she made her escape. "I don't even have any presents for your family," she fretted, hurrying over to the wrapped dishes she'd thrown together. At the very least, she could bring over some delicious casserole and tasty side dishes courtesy of Whole Foods.

"That's not what it's about, at all," Tommy said, moving toward the window through which Bill had been watching the snow drift down. "Ooh, it's snowing!"

"I'm glad we're taking your car," Bill proclaimed, staring mistrustfully out the window over the sink. There was already plenty of snow on the ground, and the heavens were seeing fit to grace them with several inches more. Bill hadn't spent her time driving roads like this since she had gotten her driver license not long ago. "You've got four wheel drive and you're sitting nice and high."

"Especially with my gal beside me," Tommy said amiably, hooking her thumbs in her low-riding pockets and swaggering toward the kitchen island.

Bill smirked over at her. She headed for a cupboard to get a bag in which to stack her things, contemplating Tommy's body swathed in over-sized clothes as usual. Even through her loose shirt she had an unmistakably svelte figure, and Bill loved each curve. She cocked her head. In her unisex clothes, Tommy was occasionally mistaken for a boy, especially with her brash demeanor. Bill found herself wondering if she'd still be with Tommy, be as attracted to her, if she _were_ a boy. Bill swung both ways, after all.

She eyed Tommy up as she returned to the kitchen counter and began to stack her containers into the sturdy canvas bag. If Tommy were a Tom, in truth, Bill decided she might have held out for longer. The kind of breezy confidence from her girl Tommy was a good deal more attractive than similarly forthright behavior from a boy. In fact, if her Tom were a boy Bill would probably think he was a bit of a pig, especially if he'd had the player reputation.

"What's that look on your face?" Tommy wanted to know, sidling over to her and putting an arm around her waist. She leaned in to kiss Bill's neck and Bill moved, landing it on her shoulder instead. "Thinking about kitchen sex?"

"Hmm," Bill said, scrunching up her face. "Thinking about double standards." She tipped her head to the side. She would have ended up with Tommy no matter what, she decided. They were meant to be.

"Look, I don't mean to," Tommy said, putting on an earnest expression. "You're just better than everyone else, Bills."

Bill grinned at her and stuck her tongue out.

"You ready to go?" Tommy asked, reaching around her to pluck the canvas bag from the counter. She hefted it easily, compared to how Bill might have fumbled it with her stick-thin arms.

"Yeah, I just..." Bill said, making a gesture toward the liquor cabinet. She was debating the advisability of taking something from Jorg's private stash as a host gift for the Brandon family. Simone and her husband would appreciate it, at least, and perhaps be inclined to overlook the underage drinking going on beneath their noses.

Bill's phone shrilled out its rotary-tone jangle, making them both startle. It was jouncing its way across the counter and she hurried toward it, scooping it up and reminding herself to update her contacts so she'd know who was calling.

"Santa's Post-Holiday Elvish Rehab Center; we're still closed for the season," Bill said into the phone, saucy. She began to giggle even before she heard a response from the other end.

"Cute," Jorg's voice remarked on the other end of the line. "I'm calling for my daughter, she's too young to be in rehab. Neither is she elvish."

"I dunno, Dad, have you seen my ears?" Bill shot back, cuddling into the arm that Tommy roped around her. "They've been awfully pointy since birth or so."

"Your mother was hardly one of the Fair Folk," Jorg said, and switched gears. "I'm going to be here rather late tonight. After I finish pushing paperwork I'm expected to put in an appearance at the company party."

"Dateless?" Bill said, shaking her head sadly.

"Alas, no," Jorg intoned. "I've been set up."

"It's a trap," Bill advised. "If your company has any kind of office pool, they expect you to marry the poor girl. So you're stuck downtown?"

"For the next several hours," Jorg replied.

_But it's Christmas,_ Bill would have whined in days past, only to receive the firm response, _"it's the day before, which is still a work-day here."_ Instead, she leaned into Tommy's arm and smiled when that arm tightened around her. "Stop by Tommy's house when you're done," she said. "I hear they're making a Christmas tofurkey."

"Sounds...vegetarian," Jorg hedged.

"The tofurkey is tomorrow," Tommy said, not bothering to lower her voice. "It's appetizers and snack food galore, tonight. And you're welcome any time before midnight, Mr. Kaulitz. After that point if you show up, my little brother will think you're Santa."

Jorg snorted in Bill's ear and they shared a quiet laugh.

"If you don't have anything planned for tomorrow," Tommy continued, "you're definitely welcome at our place for dinner. There's always too much food and we welcome the company."

"Thank you, I'll see how it goes," Jorg told Bill. "And Bill?"

"Hmm?" Bill replied, her head tucked comfortably against Tommy's shoulder.

"I'm very glad you've found someone who makes you so happy," Jorg said to her. "I've failed you on that score for awhile now, haven't I?"

"Dad," Bill uttered, pained. She didn't know how she could be expected to answer such a question.

"You don't need to say anything," Jorg told her. "Have a good time with Tommy and her family tonight. I'll call you later."

The dial tone resounded in her ear and Tommy hugged her, chinning her shoulder.

"Everything okay?" Tommy asked her, as Bill pocketed her phone at last.

"Yeah," Bill said. She gave Tommy one of her most brilliant smiles. "Yeah, I think so."

Hand in hand they left the Kaulitz house. The snowflakes were falling thick and fast outside, and it was already dark out. Tommy hummed softly under her breath as she steered the car through streets with the swathes of light that the Escalade's headlights cut across the snow-pale masses in front of them. There was something on the radio, Christmas music to a hip hop beat, and instead of making faces Bill bopped her head in time to the music.

"Are you all packed for Berlin?" Bill wanted to know, drawing one knee up as the big black car surged effortlessly through the snowy streets.

"Yeah, you know me," Tommy replied. "I threw a few color-coordinated shirts and caps into a suitcase and I'm good to go."

Bill grinned. "Yeah, the coordination is the only way I know you're a girl," she joked.

"Really," Tommy uttered, turning her attention from the road briefly to favor Bill with a raised brow.

Bill flushed. She wasn't going to say anything about strap-ons and penis envy; she was _not_. Besides, she'd enjoyed each successive use of the toy since that first amazing orgasm together. She'd even been on top a few times.

"Well," Bill said. "That and the whole vagina thing. I'm very fond of it; you must have noticed."

"I'm attached to it, myself!" Tommy replied cheerfully.

Bill snickered; they both cracked up, and Tommy reached over to turn the music up as a recognizable holiday jingle came on the radio. Bill lapsed back into her seat and this time she was the one to sing along.

"We'll have to get you singing Christmas carols with the family," Tommy commented.

"Hmm," Bill said, and an idea flourished. She had never been much of a fan of Christmas carols because the 'most wonderful time of the year' had typically meant a season of loneliness and broken promises. She had something to bargain, now. "I'll trade you Christmas carols for a demo tape."

"Huh, what?" Tommy glanced over at her from the driver seat before focusing on the road again. "That doesn't exactly sound like a fair exchange."

"I know; think what I'll be doing for our career," Bill replied smugly. She was certain all it would take would be a demo tape and some exposure – and her father could manage the second one.

"We'll talk about this later," Tommy said at last, and she sounded serious about it.

That suited Bill perfectly. Tommy was so carefree in so many respects, but Bill needed her to be serious about the music if they were going to make a career of it. After seeing the three of them play the other night, it was as though something had clicked into place for Bill. Gustav was solid and steady on the drums, playful Georg turned out a strong reliable bass line, and Tommy's talented fingers worked that guitar almost as beautifully as she played one other thing with such devotion. Bill knew she had the powerful vocals to front them.

When they arrived at the Brandon house, Tommy pulled the Escalade into a large cleared space and put it into park. She left the engine thrumming, turning to Bill in the cabin of the big car with bright eyes.

Bill folded her arms over the bulk of her peacoat, smirking back in return. "We're not making out in your driveway..."

"I wanted to brace you for what's coming," Tommy interrupted, her expression earnest yet somehow devious in a way Bill could only detect from that particular curve of Tommy's mouth, the too-vivid sparkle in her eye. "You know how my family is?"

Silently Bill nodded. The Brandon household was, for lack of a better term, domestic and homey and all of those things Bill might have called normal once, before she realized that few enough families enjoyed the kind of warm, functional closeness that the Brandons had. They weren't some kind of Stepford family – Bill had witnessed her share of arguments over the past three months – but she considered them to be the template for the ideal family. They did things together, and only Gwen seemed to chafe somewhat against that, and Bill had been welcomed wholeheartedly into their closeness with an easy fondness that still made her eyes sting when she was caught by surprise over it.

"They're about ten times more...well, like that, during Christmas," Tommy continued. One of her hands rested on the back of Bill's seat.

Bill nodded again, not sure where Tommy was going with this.

"Plus there's going to be friends, and family..." Tommy continued.

"Oh," Bill said faintly. "Full house?"

Tommy nodded. "About fifty people."

Bill summoned up her brightest smile. "It's no problem, I can handle it," she assured Tommy. She'd circulated plenty of her father's parties. She had the knack of party conversation down to an art form.

Tommy hitched up in her seat, getting closer to Bill. "That, right there," she murmured, touching Bill's face. "I knew it would put that look on your face. That's not your real smile, that's your public smile."

Bill blinked at her.

"It's just the six of us tomorrow," Tommy assured her. "But tonight will still be fun, okay?"

Bill's brows arched before she dissolved into a softer smile. Tommy knew her so well, Bill hadn't even realized it herself. She _had_ been wanting it to be the smaller, family-sized group. She unbuckled her seat belt and wriggled as close to Tommy as she could get, grinning in earnest.

"It'll be fun because I'm there with you," she whispered to Tommy. "This is my first Christmas with you, and I'm so glad to be here."

Tommy's return grin brightened up her whole face.

"Plus, you promised me champagne spritzers," Bill continued, cocking her head expectantly.

Tommy chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. And...there's going to be gifts, heaps of gifts."

"Well, of course," Bill said. "It's Christmas."

Tommy's grin turned edgy. "Here's the thing, though; you were fretting about having gifts and there's a small pile for you..."

Bill flailed at Tommy's nearest shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me--"

"Baby, you're taking me to Berlin," Tommy interjected, catching Bill's hand and tugging until Bill fell neatly into her arms. "Everyone in my family agreed that's enough."

Bill pursed her lips, glaring up at Tommy's jaw. "My father's taking you to Berlin."

Tommy chuckled. "You didn't think _I_ bought all the presents in there, did you?"

Bill began to shrug and Tommy hugged her close, stroking at her back.

"I did get you one thing," Tommy said against her hair. "And that's the other reason we're still out here. I wanted you to open it while we're still alone, together."

Bill perked up.

Tommy laughed and gave her hair a tug before releasing her to sit properly in her seat again. She caressed Bill's knee and sat up, reaching into her enormous coat.

"I didn't get you anything--" Bill said, flustered.

Tommy winked at her, outright winked, which made Bill laugh. "Oh, Bills, you _know_ you already did."

"It wasn't much..."

"It was you," Tommy told her. "And that's all I wanted."

She pulled a small, square box from an inner pocket. It was brightly wrapped in reflective silver paper streaked through with matte silver designs, further adorned with accenting swirls of silvery glitter and intermittent specks of sparkly blue. A sprig of curly silver and blue ribbons was taped to the top.

Their fingers brushed as Tommy handed it over.

"It's not much--" Tommy began, deprecating.

"Shut up," Bill said fiercely, and glanced up in time to catch Tommy biting her lip over a grin.

With fingers that trembled slightly – from the cold, Bill told herself, even though the interior of the Escalade was toasty – she stripped away the ribbon and peeled away the wrapping that enclosed the little box. It was wrapped with sharp, crisp creases and Bill found herself wondering if Tommy had wrapped it herself or turned it over to Simone to do so. She smiled; she knew Tommy was precise enough when she chose to apply herself to have done such a good job.

Within, a silver jewelry box was revealed, and Bill caught her breath. It was the wrong shape for a ring box, and for that she had to pause for a split second of mingled relief and disappointment. What had she been expecting, a promise ring? At this stage in the game it was a bit late for chastity rings.

"Aren't you going to open it?" Tommy's quiet voice prompted her.

"Shh, I'm savoring the moment," Bill replied, looking down at the unlabeled box top, fitting her fingers along one edge.

"You're making me nervous," Tommy returned. "I'm not sure you're going to like it..."

_You got it,_ Bill wanted to say, _so of course I'll love it._ She opened the box instead.

Nestling within on a bed of shaped white fluff, a small necklace sparkled with bright, tiny gems. It looked like an '8' turned on its side, and it was mounted on a thin silver chain.

"It's..." Bill's breath caught.

"The necklace, it's a symbol," Tommy began. Her fingers were nervously catching and rubbing at the nape of her neck.

"It's an infinity symbol," Bill completed, lifting her eyes to Tommy's. She broke into a brilliant smile.

The one that Tommy gave her in return was breathtaking. "I hoped you'd like it--"

This time she was interrupted by Bill surging across the space between them, tumbling into Tommy's arms even as she kept a tight grip on the necklace box. Tommy caught and held her, arms tightening around her.

"It's because I love you so much," Tommy said into her ear. "I never want to let you go."

Bill nodded, hugging her hard in return. "I'll never take it off."

They moved together at the same time and they were kissing. If there were a few salty traces of tears mixed in with the involved kisses they traded, they could both ignore it. They were engaged in a happier pastime now. Tommy cupped the back of her neck, kissing at her mouth until Bill parted her lips with a soft, eager noise. They traded kisses and tongue back and forth and Bill could quite easily melt into Tommy's arms for the rest of the night. She already knew without being told that they'd be all but glued at the hip for all of Christmas Eve.

Tommy's hand was a point of warmth at Bill's belly beneath her shirt. Somehow she'd skillfully undone the buttons of Bill's peacoat and insinuated her fingers in there and Bill was realizing only now.

"In the car?" Bill said huskily against Tommy's wet lips as she stroked at her dreadlocks, encouraging rather than putting her off in any regard.

"Why not?" Tommy returned, her thumb tracing over the top edge of Bill's skirt. "It wouldn't be the first time..."

Bill's eyes fluttered and there was no resistance in her for the thought of going at it right there as Tommy claimed her lips again, her tongue pushing insistently into Bill's mouth as she reached up to cup one of her breasts through her bra. The heaviness of gathering lust was already simmering in the pit of her stomach, flaring in her groin. If they climbed into the back seat...

A rap on the window made Tommy jerk and Bill pulled her mouth away with a little shriek.

"Gwen," Tommy said with exasperation, straightening up in her seat as Bill tugged her clothes back into alignment, clutching the necklace box to her chest.

Bill craned her head and peered through the passenger window, where Gwen's blond head was barely visible. She was short, and would probably end up nowhere near Tommy's towering six feet of long-limbed height.

With the touch of a button, the passenger window whirred down and Bill tried to maintain a straight face as they stared out at Gwen, who wore a very put-upon expression.

"Mom says not to make out in the car all night, you can do that in the house after all the guests leave," Gwen told them. She was wearing a powder pink ski jacket and matching knitted scarf and ear-flap cap with a bobble at the crown of her head, and if it weren't for her stolid face Bill might have considered the overall impression to be adorable.

"What? Why not until they leave?" Tommy protested.

Gwen's flat expression cracked in the tiniest of triumphant smirks. "All the guest coats are piled on your bed," she informed Tommy, and turned to flounce off toward the house.

She was wearing powder pink Uggs, and Bill was torn between approval and the desire to volunteer to show Gwen a world of fashion beyond what she had been exposed to thus far.

"Let's go," Tommy said, reaching across the car to pet Bill's thigh.

Bill smiled at her and handed over the necklace box. "This first," she told her.

Tommy smoothed aside her hair and drew the necklace around her neck, clasping its delicate catch at her nape. Her breath stirred over Bill's skin as she bent to kiss her nape above the necklace – right over the skin of her tattoo, Bill realized.

"You like to be independent..." Tommy began.

"I need to be free to choose," Bill interrupted. She turned in Tommy's arms and gave her a shy, yet resolved smile. "I've chosen you. It wasn't _only_ because of your persistence."

Tommy grinned at her and passed a hand over Bill's cheek, her thumb skimming across Bill's cheekbone. "Let's go inside; I want to show off my girl."

They threaded their hands together as their footsteps crunched across the snow that had piled over the recently shoveled drive and sidewalk. There was a full night before them; people to meet, carols to sing, champagne spritzers to drink and so much food to eat Bill was sure she'd be bursting, replete to the point of being unsexy.

It would be the best Christmas Eve so far, and the warmth and brightest part was beside her; the kind of love she could never let go. Bill had her own true meaning for Christmas now, and she wanted to sing her heart out to share it with the world.


	10. tenth

Warmth enclosed her; the warmth was a cocoon keeping her safe and sheltered from the rest of the world. Outside was cold, and the demands of school and an uncertain future and what would happen in the year to come. For now, there was snow sifting down in fat, thick flakes and Tommy's arm was snug around her middle. It was exactly where Bill wanted to be, now and always, with the world at bay and the two of them together.

Bill watched Tommy sleep, her dark, thick lashes lying long as a boy's against her cheeks – probably because she never used makeup the way Bill did. She was a natural beauty, and Bill's heart tugged as Tommy's mouth twitched and she made an almost-unheard smacking sort of noise in her sleep. Their noses were all but nudged together.

She was beginning to contemplate disentangling herself from their warmth and togetherness, at least for the purpose of freshening up, when a bang sounded on the door.

Tommy lurched out of sleep as Bill started up from her prone position and they knocked their heads together.

"What the fuck," Tommy lamented as Bill cringed, reaching up to explore the point where their skulls had connected.

The bedroom door swung open slowly on creaky hinges.

"I'm telling," Josh informed the two of them, standing on the threshold in Tron pajamas he'd been gifted the night before.

Tommy began to surge out of bed and Bill grabbed her by the arms, reeling her into her lap. The last thing she wanted ten-year old Josh to see was the fact that they were both in their underwear, and even that had been reluctantly donned the night before. Bill had had to remind Tommy, twice, that they weren't sleeping over at Bill's place where they had more or less total privacy.

"Get up, it's Christmas!" Josh enthused.

"There's no Santa--" Tommy started to exclaim, and Bill clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Mom said you'd say that," Josh said, completely unfazed. "Get your ass downstairs, there's presents to open."

He turned around and pattered out of Tommy's bedroom on stockinged feet while Tommy struggled in Bill's arms.

" _I'll_ tell," Tommy threatened in turn.

"We both said a swear, it cancels out!" Josh called, disappearing down the hall.

"I am going to _kill_ that little--" Tommy fumed, up until she writhed around and ended up across Bill's thighs again. "Oh. Hey, good morning."

"Good morning," Bill replied demurely, rubbing her mouth at the corner of Tommy's in a brief kiss. "Merry Christmas."

Tommy's face brightened and she bowled Bill over against the rumpled covers. "Merry Christmas. I'm so, so glad you're here." She hovered over Bill, loose dreadlocks tickling the exposed skin of her neck and shoulders, and Bill was certain she was about to be kissed.

A rap sounded at the side of the open door. "Please get decent, ladies, we're going to go downstairs and open gifts," Simone's voice requested.

Bill squirmed. Tommy was atop her and their groins were pressing together, separated only by two thin layers of panties, and her mother was _right there._ She pushed at Tommy's shoulders.

"Augh, mom, what time is it?" Tommy demanded.

"Seven a.m.," Simone replied.

Tommy uttered a curse that made Simone clack her tongue against her teeth, chiding.

"Mom! You can't us to be functional at this hour when we haven't even had coffee," Tommy complained.

"Sweetie, at least he doesn't wake us up at six a.m. anymore," Simone returned.

Tommy snorted and shifted atop Bill. It probably hadn't meant to be suggestive, but Bill had to clamp down on a little moan anyhow. "Yeah, because now you monitor his liquid intake, after he pulled that trick from the one Simpsons episode, drinking an enormous glass of water to force him to wake up super early. The little jerk."

"He's excited," Simone replied, and when Bill peered over Tommy's shoulder through a curtain of dreadlocks she could see Simone in the doorway in a lovely purple housecoat. "It's nice to see one of our family still getting so excited over special occasions like this."

"Oh, I'm excited, all right," Tommy mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Mom, you already know my best gift this year was Bill being home for Christmas," Tommy spoke up, louder.

"Hmm, yes, and I'm glad for you. That doesn't mean the two of you get to stay in bed together all day," Simone replied. "Five minutes."

The soft tread of her slippers moving on down the hall followed, and Bill tried not to sparkle up at Tommy's mischievous grin.

"We could manage five minutes," Tommy claimed, moving her hips in little motions that made Bill button her teeth over a groan and push up in spite of herself.

"Nnn...not with everyone downstairs waiting for us," Bill protested. She grabbed at Tommy's hand as it caressed down her side. "No. No way!" She tipped her head to the side as Tommy moved in for a kiss.

"Come on," Tommy said, coaxing, before nibbling at her ear.

"No, absolutely not," Bill replied.

"Give me one good reason," Tommy returned, freeing her hand of Bill's grip and stroking over the skin above her panties.

"Morning breath," Bill said, keeping her face averted.

Tommy grumbled, sitting up on her thighs. "You suck," she murmured.

"I'll suck your clit – later," Bill specified. "When we're back at my house."

With a sigh, Tommy pulled away from Bill, all but falling out of her side of the bed. "Okay, but we'd better go back to your house later today, or I may die of the cockblock."

Bill snickered. "You don't even have a cock," she pointed out.

Tommy paused in the doorway, hitching up her Christmasey-striped boxers. She turned a raised-brow look on Bill, who was still tangled up in the sheets and the lingering radiance of their shared warmth. "Don't I," she murmured, then she was gone.

After a moment of contemplation, Bill buried her face in her pillow. _She_ had given Tom a cock; or at least, a stand-in.

She had packed an overnight bag and actual pajamas, so she donned those and sought out the bathroom, where Tommy shared a sink with her and they tested one another's breath for freshness, afterward.

Downstairs, Josh was scampering around the living room passing out presents. Gordon and Simone were folded into a loveseat together, Simone with her ankle hooked over her husband's. Gwen was in a big fluffy fuchsia robe on a solo armchair, sorting boxes into piles.

Fingers caught at her hand as they moved into the living room and Bill smiled. It had been a long time since she'd been a part of something like this, a Christmas morning tradition with the family clustered around the tree. She curled her fingers around Tommy's and they found their own place on a long couch across from the tree. It was decorated Tommy-style, with every ornament heaped upon the tree in a cluttered jumble that somehow still managed to be beautiful, if not precisely to Bill's taste. It shone with bits of tinsel and the glow of string upon string of golden-white lights. There was no particular color scheme, but it was lovely nonetheless.

Bill nestled into the curve of Tommy's arm and enjoyed watching everyone open their presents, surprised anew when it came to her turn and there was a small pile awaiting her, as well.

She got a small rectangular box with a bright red bow, and opened up the seam along the taped edge with her thumbnail.

Through the clear window of the packaging, she could see the shapes of a couple of smooth mounds, almost like a peach but there was something wedged in the crack, gold and glinting. _Marzipan,_ the packaging proclaimed. As Bill turned the package in her hands she was startled into a laugh.

"It's...it's a _man,_ " she said aloud in surprise, taking it in.

Visible through the packaging was a small man shaped entirely of marzipan, airbrushed a rosy flesh pink with food dyes, his brown pants pulled down to reveal his bared buttocks. A large gold coin was wedged between them.

"Oh, my god, what is this?" Bill said, laughing.

Tommy leaned on her shoulder. "It's a _dukat_...uh..." She nodded to her parents.

"It's a _Dukatenscheisser_ ," Gordon supplied with a grin. "A good luck charm, something to, ah, make sure you never run out of money."

"Really?" Bill said, still giggling.

Gordon winked at her and Tommy said into her ear, "You can ask your German relatives when we see them next week. We all get one every year – they might have gotten one for you, as well."

Bill grinned and set it aside.

Last night there had been fireworks, and more food than Bill could deal with but she'd kept eating the platefuls Tommy had pushed on her. There had been crowded roomfuls of people, and champagne spritzers as promised, and steamy kisses at midnight when Tommy had taken her by the hand and led her upstairs for a moment away from the full house. They had gone outside in the crisp black night to watch fireworks bloom against the darkness as people left by twos and threes.

This would be a Christmas difficult to surpass, but Bill was storing up each memory, grinning brightly as Josh exclaimed over presents, smiling up gratefully as Simone came by to give her a fresh cup of coffee.

They stayed in their pajamas for hours, having coffee and danish and assorted other foods. There was soy-sausage on the table and free range eggs, cold cereal to spoon up and a wealth of sliced fruits. Bill pitched in with dishes, helping without a grumble because she was so utterly awash with gratitude for all that the Brandons had done for her. They cleaned up the living room, Bill holding out a garbage bag while Tommy made dramatic pitches of balled-up wrapping paper. Later they scrambled into clothes and Bill donned her coat to go around the block with Tommy and her black lab mix Scotty.

It turned into a snow romp, with Tommy plastering Bill with snowballs and Bill squealing and doing her best to fight back, scooping up snow into shoddy falling-apart wads that she flung Tommy's way, missing the mark more often than not.

They returned to the house breathless, flushed and laughing, and Tommy let Scotty's leash slip from her hand as she tugged Bill close to kiss her firmly.

"Can we slip away now?" Tommy whispered against the corner of her mouth.

Bill scrunched her nose up. "We're having Christmas dinner," she objected.

"Yeah, but you promised..." Tommy began, and instead of finishing the sentence, she kissed at Bill's mouth again, tonguing her way past her lips to stroke against Bill's tongue in a coaxing sort of gesture.

"And we still will, later," Bill promised, kissing at Tommy's full lower lip before tugging at her lip ring with her teeth. She was about to reach down and grab her ass when a piping voice intruded on their little moment.

"Gross! Kissing gives you cooties, you know."

Bill pulled away, about to laugh until she saw murder in Tommy's eyes.

"You little--" Tommy said, making throttling motions with her hands. She started toward Josh, who backed up a few steps.

"It's a real thing!" Josh asserted. "Look it up some time! Besides, if you want kissing you can go make your sims kiss in Sims 3, or something, right? That's cootie free."

Tommy lunged toward Josh and Bill caught her girlfriend around the waist. Josh squeaked and fled; Tommy turned in Bill's arms and gave her a triumphant smile.

"Now, where were we?" Tommy purred, setting a hand to Bill's hip.

"You were about to set the table," Simone replied, entering the front hallway. She had exchanged her housecoat for a sweater and jeans at some point, and wore a colorful apron over her front. She had a dishtowel in one hand and a smudge of flour on one high cheekbone.

"Aw, Mom..." Tommy tried to complain. "We just finished walking Scotty."

"Don't you 'aw, Mom,' me," Simone countered. "Gwen's already helping with the food, the least you and Bill can do is set the table."

"Of course we can," Bill said peaceably, catching at Tommy's hand. It was domestic touches like this that made her time at the Brandons' house invaluable.

They were halfway through laying out silver, Christmas pieces with sprigs of mistletoe inlaid into the handles with enameled green and red, when the front doorbell sounded.

"Bill, dear, would you get that, please?" Simone called from the kitchen.

Unseen, Bill nodded and hurried for the door, eep-ing when Tommy smacked her on the ass in passing.

"Merry Christmas," Jorg greeted her on the doorstep. He wore a long black trench coat, one of the elegant ones that Bill had picked out for him a few years before, and had a gigantic Marshall Field's shopping bag in his hand.

"Dad!" Bill exclaimed, and stepped forward to be enfolded in a hug.

"I heard there was tofurkey on offer," Jorg said against her hair. "I wouldn't want to miss this."

Bill snickered against his shoulder. He was only a few inches taller, so she had her head ducked against him.

"Thank you for joining us," she murmured.

He patted her back, awkward but sincere. "Without you, it wouldn't be a proper Christmas."

Bill grinned and led him into the house. Now her holiday was truly complete.

Though private time with Tommy was still high on her to-do list for the rest of the day, of course.

"Dad," Bill said, flashing a shy smile over her shoulder. "I'd like you to meet Tommy's parents."

Jorg sighed heavily, though his expression was good-natured. "And here I thought it was too early to meet prospective in-laws. All right, Bills, lead on."

"Dad!" Bill squealed, dancing up the hallway with ungainly strides. She put on an embarrassed front, but as she ducked her head her fringe of hair veiled a smile, and she reached up to touch the necklace that rested in the hollow between her collarbones.

It wasn't too early to start planning forever, after all.

* * *

They stood hand in hand beside the gate to International flights, but it wasn't a parting. Bags checked, passports in hand, they were ready to step forth into their next adventure.

"First Berlin; next, the world," Bill declared outrageously, her grin widening when Tommy turned an indulgent expression on her.

"We're going forth and conquering?" Tommy asked. "I thought it was a visit to your family."

Bill shrugged. "Same thing. We're going to meet my Opa. I'm pretty sure he will insist you are a boy for the entire visit."

"I can work with that. I'd slay dragons for your hand," Tommy claimed, lifting Bill's knuckles toward her mouth, as though to brush a kiss across them.

Bill chuckled and pulled her hand free, tugging down the bill of Tommy's cap over her mischievous brown eyes. "I'd settle for your putting up with Aunt Katerina."

"We've welcomed you into the bosom of our family," Tommy said, falling into step with her as they moved toward the security checkpoint. "It's only fair to endure the same...er, _enjoy_ the same privilege."

"Then at least we've got each other," Bill replied.

Together they moved for the checkpoint. It felt like the start of something, and Bill took Tommy's hand again. They'd walk into their future endeavors with the will to make each moment count.

It was the strength that they gave to one another, and all that Bill wanted for any occasion.

+the end+


End file.
